//------------------------------// // 17 - The Rock Farm // Story: The Hollow Pony // by Type_Writer //------------------------------// It was a good thing Bon-Bon had told us about the signs, and given us a name. If we hadn’t been given either of those, then we would have wandered through the fog for who knows how long, and maybe been lost forever. But with those two clues, we were able to follow the old roads fairly easily; they’d avoided most damage, and we could see far enough to stay on the path. The only difficulty came when we had to stop and really examine the occasional sign up close; the paint was always faded, but sun, rain, and time had been especially unkind to a few. More than once we had to guess what they said, judging from the general shape of the words. A couple signs had even fallen off entirely, and in one case we could only find the lone post remaining. We’d explored down a couple of roads to the empty farms before we seemingly found the right path. Trixie seemed to be getting slightly agitated as the terrain turned hard beneath our hooves, and I noticed she was suddenly much more focused when she peered through the fog for landmarks. Eventually, I had to ask if something was wrong. “Maybe,” Trixie mumbled after a few seconds of silent thought. “Maybe I’ve been here before. This is all very familiar, and I don’t like it.” As we approached our destination, the fog seemed to thin, and the stony soil beneath our hooves grew more slick as the moisture in the air soaked the ground instead. Once we could see clearly, we made our way up a hill, and overlooked what Bon-Bon had called “the old Pie farm.” It wasn’t like any farm I could recall ever having seen. Instead of fertile fields, the ground here looked like a thin layer of dirt over bare stone, only occasionally broken up by the dried evidence of mud washed downslope. To the south, a quarry had clearly been dug into the stone, and it had been dug deep enough that we couldn’t see the bottom from the top of our hill, though we could see a strange blue glow from within. A thin forest—which looked as though it had already been sickly before the curse killed it—surrounded the boundaries of the farm, which were marked by a low wall made of stones and mortar. The buildings themselves had been similarly built out of the materials the original farmers had available, which meant mostly stone bricks supported by wooden beams. Still, they had weathered the eternity between now and the sunset far better than most structures I’d laid eyes upon. The farmhouse was a simple structure, barely two floors, and the second floor looked more like an extended attic, or maybe a sleeping loft. Beside it sat a wooden barn that had darkened with age, and the windows had long been patched over with scrap wood. A roughly circular wall had been erected around the buildings, but the construction of the wall spoke of amateur work, especially by comparison. Where the buildings had been built out of carefully-cut stone mortared together like pieces of a puzzle, the wall seemed more as though it had been built out of stacked stones, and the mortar was an afterthought that had been applied by pouring it over the top. On average, it was about twice my height, but large sections of it had clearly fallen off the top of the wall, or had been stacked much higher than others in various shoddy repair jobs. A stone windmill had been built outside this wall, and the broken blades still slowly turned in the gentle breeze. Within the perimeter, we saw movement, but couldn’t make out distinct shapes. Smoke curled upwards from various fires lit within the stone wall, and we could taste the scent of the burning wood on the breeze. Between Applejack’s original instructions and Bon-Bon’s assistance, this had to be the place. Surprisingly enough, Trixie had joined me in scouting out the area in detail. When I turned back to her, she was actually still focused on the farm, and seemed to be trying to get a better look at the movement within the walls. I tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention, and she brushed me off until I tapped her again. “What?” she snapped, an angry, hushed hiss, “What do you want?” “Ar-are you ok-okay?” I tilted my head in confusion as I asked, but Trixie shook herself and looked back at the farm. When she spoke, it was almost lost to the wind, but I leaned in to make sure I heard it all. “Trixie recognizes this place. She spent some time here, after...it’s not important.“ Trixie closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of the earthen scents of the rock farm. After a moment, she opened her eyes again, and narrowed them at the distant shapes below. “If the pigs really have moved in, then they’re probably not here any more. Still...it would be nice to know for sure.” Finally, Trixie sighed. “Very well, Hollow. You’ve convinced me that this is mercenary work worth doing. You have the aid of the punitive and vengeful Trixie. But we do it my way.” “Th-that’s f-fine, I d-didn’t really kn-know where to st-start, anyways…” I had no idea how many pigs there were, or how well-armed they all were. I certainly wasn’t just going to walk in and start swinging my sword, but against this many foes? It seemed like I didn’t have many options. Trixie pointed down the hill, and traced our path with her hoof while I watched. “We need to stay out of sight for as long as we can, which isn’t easy with the fog as thin as it is. Thankfully, these idiots have built a stone wall that blocks off most of their sight, and I can only see a couple of lookouts standing around on the roof of the barn, as it’s the only building with roof access. We’ll go down this hill, pass by the quarry and Holder’s Boulder, and then approach from the southwest. Once we reach the wall, we can follow it around to get back to the barn, staying out of sight. We’ll climb over a short section, then I can pull the lookouts off the roof and onto the ground so you can kill them, and we can move around a little more freely.” I swallowed at the mention of killing, but I had agreed to this for Dinky’s sake. At least these were bandits; any hope of a peaceful resolution was whimsy at best. We’d do what we had to do, make Ponyville a little bit safer, and Dinky would be one step closer to freedom. Trixie’s horn came alight, and she cast a quick spell on both of us, which, she explained, would make us blurry at very long distances and would cover our approach a little bit better. With that done, she took the lead, and we both slid down the loose gravel hillside to the fields of the rock farm, after we hopped the ancient stone wall that marked the boundary. “S-so...w-what is this p-place, exactly?” We kept our voices low. I was fairly sure the hogs wouldn’t be able to hear us at such an extreme distance, but it was better not to take that risk. “Mostly, it’s a quarry,” Trixie explained. “Ponies dig into the stone down in that hole over there until a lump of rock comes loose, then they haul it up the hill and break it down into smaller rocks, or ship the whole thing off somewhere. They also crack geodes, and grow crystallized aether, though that’s sort of incidental, I think. They call it a rock farm because it’s technically part of the Ponyville farming community, and probably so they get subsidies from Canterlot. They’re pretty far away though, and they only really go into town once a month to buy food. Or...they used to, I suppose.” As she spoke, we approached the quarry, and I peered over the mouldering wooden fence. It seemed more like a polite suggestion that I shouldn’t fall off, as opposed to any sort of real protection. At the bottom of the quarry, I saw movement, and Trixie paused as well so we could both look down at the creature at the bottom of the wide pit. It seemed like a great lizard, or a particularly thin dragon, but massive ice-blue crystals had grown across the beast’s flesh instead of scales. Even as it moved, it ground and cracked, and left a trail of broken shards and dust as it sniffed around the edges of the pit. Wherever the crystals had fallen, they had begun to grow outwards, and we could see the paths left by the creature as it shuffled around, because it was the only place where a pony could still walk without having to climb over them. “It’s some sort of animal?” Trixie muttered. “Those are aether crystals, but I’ve never seen them grow like that, and never on a creature made of flesh. What is that thing?” “N-no idea…” I murmured. “D-do you th-think it’s d-dangerous?” “Even if it’s not predatory, it moves too quickly for my liking. I wouldn’t want to tangle with it myself, but...hm…” Trixie seemed to be lost in thought for a little while, and as she watched the beast snuffle around the bottom of the quarry, my own eyes wandered around the edge. A little further on, it looked like a large stone had been perched on the edge, but some great force had cracked it in half. I trotted over to investigate, and Trixie followed, though her eyebrows furrowed again in confusion as she looked over the scene. “This is—or was—Holder’s Boulder…I never got the full story of it myself, but it's strange that somepony went out of their way to break it.” Trixie glanced down at the bottom of the quarry, and then shook her head. “Good riddance. Limestone had an unhealthy obsession with the thing.” “L-Limestone?” Trixie either didn’t hear me, or didn’t acknowledge the question. “We’re approaching from behind the windmill now. Let’s start moving towards the wall.” I nodded, and we changed direction to pick our way across the rock fields. While the dirt here looked as poor as the rest of the farm, I couldn’t help but notice that our hoofsteps were disturbing an odd pattern in the soil across the field. It looked like the trail of thousands of stones being rolled, or dragged, across the field, but it seemed too intentional for that. I tried to follow the pattern as we walked, but I could only see so far, and it was too spread out. I’d need to see the whole thing to make any sense of it. My focus on the pattern distracted me, however. The first indication that we had been spotted came when a round stone, about half the width of my hoof, suddenly slammed into my cheek and dazed me. I sprawled into the dirt of the field with a yelp, and Trixie turned to look at me in confusion. A moment later, a second stone whipped over her head and knocked her hat off, and she ducked as she swore loudly. “Scat! They had a patrol wandering the field!” I struggled to stand as Trixie’s horn lit, and she reared up on her hinds. I heard her cry, “Oh, you’re not going anywhere! You all want a piece of Trixie? Then you shall have her!” There was a squeal as a flailing form whipped past me and bounced off of a nearby rock, and that finally inspired me to stand and shake the rest of the stars from my eyes. I drew my sword and spun around to get a good grasp on the fight—Trixie had thrown one of the pigs when he’d tried to run, it seemed, as the others were already dedicated to a charge straight at us. One had a hoe, another had a club, and the last had a small hoof-axe clenched in his snout. They all wore ragged armor that looked like it had been made of cloth strips that had been poorly woven together, reinforced with scrap metal or wood, whatever they could find. This was the first time I’d seen the “Ashen Wallowers” for myself, and I recognized their rough shape as being pigs originally. Their general anatomy was unchanged, but they were much bulkier, and had grown significantly. Now they came all the way up to my shoulder instead of being just above knee-height, and they seemed to have regressed slightly back towards being wild boars. They each had a pair of sharp, gleaming tusks that stabbed outwards from the sides of their mouths, and a layer of shaggy fur that had grown haphazardly over their softer flesh. What was more, they seemed to be Hollowing, just like us. Their flesh had aged and taken on a green hue, as well as having bloated slightly like a drowned corpse. The embers of their eyes were wild with the flames of chaos, and flickered as their vision jerked between me and Trixie. The one hog that Trixie had thrown bled bubbling red blood, and it sizzled as it seeped down his snout and stained the rock he lay across. The one with the club broke off towards me, while the other two focused on Trixie, and the last was still on the ground, where he lay and grunted in pain. He was safe to ignore. Instead, I focused entirely on the hog armed with a club. He leapt up into the air at the end of his sprint, and I was stunned as he released the club from his snout to grab it with his hooves while in the air. I only barely remembered to raise my sword, and it saved my life when it absorbed most of the blow, but forced the blade down into the ground. The hog snarled and whipped his club horizontally, but I couldn’t leave my sword stabbed into the loam, and I chose to trust my armor. The blow slammed into my chest, but the padded barding softened most of it. I still staggered, but I wasn’t injured, and it gave me the opening I needed to yank my shortsword out of the muck. The pig swung his club over his back to brace for a heavy swing, and I used the opening to step forward and slash at him with my sword. I could move faster than he could, which earned me a squeal and a splatter of boiling blood, but it didn’t deter him from bringing the club back down on me in return. Crushing force slammed into my back thigh, and I was forced down to the ground as I felt the club bounce off of me. As he was hauling the heavy wooden weapon back into a fighting stance, I took the opportunity to stab upwards into the foreleg that held it. He squealed and dropped the club as I pierced through his leg, and yanked the grip back towards myself. Whether it was torn out or yanked him towards me, it didn’t matter, but it definitely seemed to hurt. As the pig sprawled towards me, and kicked and stabbed with his tusks, I felt just a pang of guilt. But that faded when those same tusks pierced my barding. I felt them scrape against the steel collar around my own throat, and glancing down and piercing my breast. Pain filled my vision, and I gasped as I brutally ripped the shortsword back out. I felt the hog’s leg bones shatter as I did, and it managed to distract him long enough to physically shove him away. Black blood squirted across us both as it soaked my barding, and I knew I had to finish him now, before he could rally or I passed out. I had only so many lives to lose, now. I tossed my sword beside him, and he looked up in confusion, which gave me the perfect opening to slam both my forehooves into his snout. He toppled backwards into the dirt, and I just kept stomping. If I had the strength of an earth pony, maybe I could have crushed him right there, but all I could do was batter him into submission. When he threw his hooves up to protect his face, I grabbed my sword again, and aimed for his exposed belly. There was a final shrill squeal of pain as I stabbed the blade deep into his barrel, and up, to force it under his ribs, towards his vital organs. That finally seemed to be the final straw, and the hog slumped, dead for the moment. Hopefully, we would be long gone by the time his fire healed the wound. It took effort to yank the blade back out, as it was slick with both our blood, and the time it took to do so left me vulnerable. Stars filled my vision again as a splitting pain erupted from the back of my head, and I staggered once more, only to trip over the corpse at my hooves. When I managed to raise my head again, I spotted the hog that I had dismissed before, which Trixie had thrown; he was the one armed with a slingshot, which he now aimed at Trixie. Maybe he thought the stone had knocked me entirely senseless? I couldn’t stagger towards him fast enough, and he managed to loose another stone. I watched as the rock arced through the air, towards Trixie, and I opened my mouth to warn her, but it was too late. The stone collided with Trixie’s head...and passed right through, Trixie evaporating into thin air. I was confused, but not as much as the slingshot hog, and I was able to close the distance just as he drew the slingshot back, this time aimed in my direction. I ducked under the stone as it whipped over my shoulder, and I swung my sword up as I rose, to bring the blade down upon his head. He tried to flinch out of the way, but all he accomplished was that he made my blade slam into his own shoulder, instead of his skull.  His leg dislocated with a crack, and I ripped the sword out, which made him claw at the fresh wound. Finally, I swung the blade under his chin, and while it didn’t fully decapitate the hog, all he could do was claw at his throat as boiling blood burbled out of his opened throat. When I pulled the sword free, blood gushed out to fill the void, and my second opponent stilled a moment later as it pooled around my hooves. With both of them dead, a wave of exhaustion suddenly wracked my body, and I remembered my own grievous wound. Ironically, Applejack’s symbol of captivity had saved my life when it directed the blow downwards; if it had been any higher, the hog’s tusks would have pierced my throat instead. Cold numbness had begun to spread outwards as my black blood cooled, and my soaked barding clung tightly to my breast. My hooves shook as I sheathed the blood-stained sword, and tried to use both my hooves to pull my barding away from my collar. It was crowding me, I couldn’t pull in air, my chest didn’t compress right when I tried- “Hey, Hollow idiot! Over here!” I turned at Trixie’s shout, and spotted her at the entrance to the stone windmill. I kept myself together to gallop on limp hooves over to meet her, and she chuckled as she saw my condition. “You look like a real savage, friend. You fight like one, too; Trixie can respect that, but if that’s all you can do, you’re not long for this world.” I tried to speak, but ichor spilled out of my mouth instead, and she flinched. “Eugh, don’t get that stuff on me. Get in here, they’ll have heard the fighting and shouting from inside the wall.” It felt like it took the rest of my strength to stagger into the stone tower, and I passed by the millstone, only to collapse against the wall in the back just as darkness began to creep towards the center of my vision. I couldn’t die, I had to fight it. I didn’t know many deaths I had left, but I couldn’t afford to spend even a single one if it might be my last. I clawed at my pierced breast, and cold ichor soaked my hooves as I fought for my life, but it was to no avail. I succumbed to my wounds in the back of the darkened windmill, while Trixie was focused on the door with her horn aglow. * * * Sore. My breast was sore, like it had been a week past having been kicked, and it was the first thing I felt when consciousness gradually filtered back into my abused corpse. My neck was sore as well, from having laid limp in the same position for so long. My eyes flickered to life, and I groaned, only to feel a rag get stuffed into my open mouth. “Shush! They might be nearby again.” Trixie’s near-silent hiss had come from my right somewhere, and I struggled to lift my head and look at her. Dried ichor cracked into flakes as I did so. I felt like a living blood clot, but it was dry all the way down. I had been dead for a while, and I was actually kind of surprised that Trixie was still here. I would have almost expected her to have made her escape and left me for dead by now. The light was dim, and I struggled to see. The magician seemed to be seated against another wall, and her eyes were on the doorway. Only…when I turned my head, there was no door. The wall was flush, even though I knew there had been a door there, or else how had we entered? As I watched, she cast a spell on her hooves, and when she stood, her steps were silent. She paced slowly towards the wall all the same, and a thin seam opened at eye level, which allowed a thin ray of light into the darkened windmill. I winced as I saw the dried ichor that had mixed with the dirt floor; I had made a mess when I stumbled in. I hoped I hadn’t left so much of a trail to the entrance...wherever it was. After Trixie had peered through the slit for a short while, she nodded, and turned back to me. She left the slit open to provide light, and I felt the rag in my mouth dislodge itself. It floated over the millstone, where Trixie let it drop unceremoniously. “We should be safe, but shut up if you hear anything. Can you stand?” I groaned again as I pushed my body forward, and my head flopped down as my neck ached. The dried ichor fell off of me in a shower of dusty flakes, and when I finally managed to stand, I spent a few seconds just trying to brush it all off, to no avail. It had soaked my barding as well, and the black clump seemed to have become a part of the armor. More than ever, I wanted a bath to wash all of this off. A rain shower sounded wonderful, if I thought I could manage it while I was grounded. Trixie nodded. “Good enough, I suppose. You can sit back down, I need to explain the plan.” I did so, and leaned back against the wall as I continued trying to scrape my old ichor off. “Are-are we s-safe here?” “Safe-ish,” Trixie explained, with a non-committal waggle of her hoof. “I’ve got an illusion around the doorframe, and it looks like they haven’t noticed that the windmill doesn’t have an entrance yet. So long as we’re quiet whenever a patrol passes by, we should be alright. You’re welcome, by the way.” “Th-thank you,” I croaked. “H-how l-long…?” “Have you been out? Not terribly long, maybe a day or two. There’s been a couple of rainstorms, which at least covered our tracks. Rather annoying how quickly they come and go in this part of the country.” Multiple storms in “a day or two”? That wasn’t atmospherically possible, especially not with the weather running wild. How skewed was Trixie’s perception of time? How skewed was my own? As I mulled over how long I’d actually been dead, Trixie continued. “It’s been pretty boring in the meantime, but I can move around unseen when needed. I spent most of the time scouting the rock farm in greater detail, and planning out my plan of attack. It’s useful that you’ve woken up, it’ll be easier with two ponies.” Trixie’s horn flashed, and a magical map of the area spread out over the ground between us. “We’re in here, as you might recall. The farmhouse is here, the barn is here, the wall surrounds both of them, but not this structure. Remember?” I leaned closer to get a better look, while I idly tugged at my barding to peel it off my flesh, and she continued to explain. “They aren’t quite as organized as everypony seems to think. They changed leaders once since we arrived, and this new hog boss seems content to have the other hogs fight for his amusement in this small fenced-in area in front of the farmhouse. He watches from this window, the rest all hang around this general area in front of the house, unless there’s a fight. Then they all crowd around the fence to watch the bloodsport. This leaves the farmhouse itself pretty much unguarded, aside from a couple of patrols.” There was an incredibly gross sucking noise as I finally separated the dried barding from my chest, and found that the ichor was still somewhat wet within. For once, I thanked the Winds that decay and mold had ceased to grow, because I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to handle the smell if I’d begun to rot. I shifted it loosely to reseat the cloth, but I found that it never quite sat as well as it had when it was plastered to my chest. It was easier to move in now, at least, and both my muscles and the fabric that protected them grew less stiff the more I moved around. Trixie gave me an unamused glare. “Are you finished?” At my nod, she continued. “Fine. So, I’ve determined that the best way to get the bumpkin’s stupid horseshoe is to put on a show, which is something that the Great and Powerful Trixie is very good at. I’ll get their attention with some fireworks and Pyromancy, which will lead them over to the quarry. That’s where you come in, to bait the trap.” “Uh…” I wanted to interrupt and ask her to clarify what exactly she meant by that, but Trixie never slowed down. “You’re going to get the attention of that...eh, call it a crystal lizard. It’s definitely a predator, by the way, so don’t let it catch you. Anyway, you’re going to make it notice you, and then you need to have it chase you up and out of the quarry into the stone fields. I can throw an illusion in between the quarry and the farmhouse so neither side sees the other, until I drop said illusion. They fight each other, we mop up the survivors after they kill the lizard, and we can check the farmhouse at our leisure. Nice and easy.” I held up my hooves. “W-wait, how m-much did I m-miss? How d-do you kn-know it’s a p-predator? W-why hav-haven’t they al-already k-killed it, s-since it’s s-so close?” Trixie smirked, and I was suddenly very nervous for my own well-being. “Call it rehearsals. They didn’t notice a few patrols going missing, so long as I waited a good bit of time between them. The hogs are absolutely impossible to reason with, by the way. You can’t even understand them anymore, not that Trixie spoke hog before they went nuts. Anyway, I tossed a few into the quarry to test, and the big lizard seemed to appreciate the snack. As for why they haven’t taken care of the problem on their doorstep...I think it doesn’t hunt outside the quarry, so they leave it alone. Or maybe they feel like they don’t have the pony-power...er...hog-power.” “A-and you w-want me t-to m-make this th-thing ch-chase me?” Trixie crossed her forehooves. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is in just as much risk as you—perhaps even more. I have to attract fifty-something insane pig-bandits and get them to follow me outside of their camp. You only have to deal with one creature.” “B-but it’s a r-really b-big creature!” I held out my hooves wide for emphasis, or maybe I was just throwing them in the air to show my exasperation. “This performance was originally planned as a solo act,” Trixie said, her tone sharp. “You can try and get the horseshoe for yourself, if you prefer. But Trixie will not wait for you at the gates to Ponyville, and she will be happy to reap the ‘rewards’ for herself. Getting back in, and getting a single moment to slip away from the bumpkin commander, is all I need.” And then I’d be stuck outside, with no way back in, and no way to help Dinky. I knew Trixie certainly wouldn’t; as far as she was concerned, the filly could rot in her cell. She had made it abundantly clear by this point that all she wanted was her cart, and the freedom to perform across Equestria once more. I didn’t like it, not in the slightest, but I didn’t really have a choice. “F-fine, I’ll h-help,” I muttered dejectedly. Trixie’s smile softened, just a bit, and she stood once more. “Excellent! Now, I’ll go check where the patrols are right now, so we can slip between them. There’s a dead hog around the corner too, Trixie’s latest kill, and you should take his corpse with you to get the lizard’s attention. Lead the lizard towards the farmhouses, and Trixie will take care of the rest!” * * * She had made it sound so easy, I reflected. Just lure the big lizard out of the quarry and get it across the field. Easy as that. But as I stared down the stone path that wound down the quarry wall, with a Hollowed pig lying limp across my back and further soaking my armor in ichor, I wondered if perhaps I had let Trixie convince me just a little bit too easily. I could hear the great crystal lizard, as it stomped and crawled around the bottom of the quarry. The stone under my hooves trembled faintly with every step it took, and it was regular enough that I could follow the rhythm. I closed my eyes and counted, and clung to my fire for comfort. Flare, one, two, three, four, flicker. Inhale, one, two, three, four, exhale. My eyes flickered open. I was as ready as I was going to be, and so I started to trudge downward. I continued my breathing rhythm as I walked across the rumbling stone, but it caught suddenly in my throat when I was about halfway down the ramp that led into the depths. It was there, perched on the rocks. It was looking at me. The crystal lizard had no eyes to speak of, since the creature’s head seemed to have been overtaken entirely by crystal, but I could tell. It was balanced on its hind legs, with three more sets of legs hanging in front of the beast’s chest for a total of eight, and its head was pointed directly at me as it sniffed the air. I swallowed and took another step, and just as I thought, the lizard’s head followed my movements. I had the beast’s attention, but how would I get it to actually follow me? If I stayed where I was, would it come over to investigate, or would it lose interest in a few moments? Would it actually follow me all the way up and out of the pit? Neither of us moved a muscle. I got the impression it was waiting for me, to see what I’d do when staring down a large predator. It was curious if I was just teasing it, or if I’d make a dumb move, and allow it to stalk me. So, I made a dumb move, and kept walking closer. When it still didn’t move, I had an awful feeling, and looked away. Within seconds, I heard the grind and crackle of the crystal beast as it crawled closer. I forced myself not to look at it as I continued to slowly trudge along the ramp. I could tell more-or-less where it was from the sound, so I didn’t really need to, but it deeply unsettled me to know that I was being hunted. Soon, I would be close enough that it could crawl up over the side of the ledge to meet me, and I paused, which caused the great lizard to pause as well. When I looked up, it was terrifyingly close, but still not close enough that it could catch me if it ran. So I forced myself to look away again, back up the hill, towards safety. After a few moments, the lizard began to move again, and the stone under my hooves trembled as it crawled up onto the ground in front of me. Finally, I could take it no longer, and looked back at it—but this time it didn’t stop. I panicked. I awkwardly spun on my hooves as it sped up to chase me, and I knew I couldn’t get away with the weight of the regenerating pig on my back. I heaved him off and continued to gallop uphill, but I couldn’t keep myself from looking back to see if it took the bait. It paused above the dead hog, sniffed it briefly, and then continued to chase after me, while the dead pig was left on the stone floor. I’d barely bought myself a few scant seconds, and I had to push myself to make it up the slope before it caught up to me. It closed the distance terrifyingly fast, and it couldn’t have been more than ten body-lengths behind me as I reached the top of the ramp. The ground trembled with every step it took, and I could finally gallop at my absolute top speed now that I was on flat, level ground. I dodged between rocks and saw gravel get thrown into the sky behind me, but something was wrong; the farmhouse looked the same as it ever had. There was no Trixie, no Wallowers, not even a firework in the sky to get their attention. Had I been too early? Had Trixie failed, and been captured? Or had she chosen not to uphold her end of the deal, and I was just supposed to let the beast chase me all the way into the camp? That was when the air was ripped apart before me, and a veil that had hidden all of Trixie’s work dissolved into sparkling nothingness. Trixie herself galloped past me and directly into the crystal lizard, but then she also dissolved into nothing; just another illusion. Behind her, I came face to face with an entire warband of angry hogs, and their anger switched to me. That lasted for only a moment, until they saw the beast on my tail, and they scattered, squealing, in a dozen different directions while I galloped directly through them. As the pigs dispersed and we lost all interest in each other, my eyes started to scan for Trixie again, in the hopes that maybe I’d spot where she actually was. After a moment, my eyes found a figure sitting atop a large rock, and I changed course to gallop towards her. I didn’t look behind me this time, as I could hear the war cries of the Ashen Wallowers all around me, and how they kept being cut off suddenly by wet crunches and the grinding of crystals. It didn’t end as I emerged out of the other side of their passel, and the rock fields around were clear. I could still hear the noises as I galloped away, and I felt sick. Not just at the noises themselves, though they certainly didn’t help. No, I felt sick because this was something I had done. Trixie’s plan had been successful, and because of that, these bandits were being absolutely shredded by the massive predator that I had baited from its lair. Would these two forces have remained in complete peace forevermore, were it not for our intervention? As I approached the large rock, Trixie came into sharp focus. She was spread out and relaxed atop the stone, and watched the grand battle behind me with a smirk on her face. She barely spared me a glance as I drew close. “Oh! You actually made it out. Come on then, there’s plenty of room up here to watch the show.” I circled the rock as my legs began to ache. I could certainly gallop for a good distance, but I always felt like I had to collapse afterwards to rest. As my movements grew clumsy, I tried to focus on my breathing, in case that helped. Eventually, I found a less-steep portion that Trixie had probably climbed, and began to scramble up the rough stone. I had only made it about shoulder-height before I suddenly lost my balance, and my back hoof slipped out from under me. Thankfully, I managed to fall against the rock, and I decided to catch my breath there as I clung to the stone. After a few moments, Trixie’s head poked over the side, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Really? Do I have to do everything, honestly…” Her horn lit, and her field enveloped me, but I was surprised at how weak her pull actually was. She barely lifted me to a standing position, and when I looked up at her in confusion, Trixie was visibly straining. “Well, come on! Work with me, you stupid Hollow!” Trixie’s magical grasp kept me from slipping again, at least. With her begrudging help, I managed to clamber the rest of the way up the rock, and I collapsed fully atop the boulder. Trixie laid down a bit more elegantly beside me, though I saw her trying to hide the fact that she was panting slightly. “Finally...now, we just sit up...sit up here and watch these stupid hogs...wear down the lizard. This way, we can catch our breath...while they’re still tired from their fight.” I felt sick from both the exertion, and guilt from causing the battle before us. But Trixie’s logic definitely made a certain amount of sense, and we had been sent here to kill them, as I had to keep reminding myself. This was pragmatic, and much better than having to fight all of them ourselves. But those rationalizations didn’t make the carnage easy to watch. From up here, I could see that the Wallowers had rallied very quickly after they had initially been scattered, and seemed to be trying to attack from all directions at once, then leap back. The overall effect was that they kept getting in solid hits every few seconds, while the crystal lizard whirled around towards the most recent attack. It was a good strategy when they had that many bodies and weapons, and a single large foe that they could all attack without much coordination. I could see why Trixie anticipated that they would win eventually. The only problem was, it didn’t seem to be working at all. The crystal lizard was massive, fast, and above all, tough. Swords and axes barely knocked jagged chunks of crystal loose, and only drew shallow cuts across the scaled flesh of the creature’s legs. Clubs seemed to stun it, and they had a little bit of success when they targeted joints, but they never accomplished anything more than that. One hog came in with a sharpened shovel and managed to get the blade jammed in between two crystals on the beast’s back, but no actual damage was done, and the hog was easily grabbed and flung helplessly away. If anything, the crystal lizard seemed to be winning. As time went on, it showed that it could move at deadly speeds to dodge blows and chase down individual hogs. When they grouped up to give chase, it doubled back and crushed them in large groups. When they stood back to use bows and slingshots, it just started chasing them down one by one. Eventually, the hogs even tried to retreat to the farmhouse, and the lizard actually beat them there. It rolled itself up into a ball of jagged crystal, and rolled around the hogs in a circle as if it were playing with them. Even Trixie began to look somewhat nervous. “I, er...I knew the hogs were incompetent, but this is not nearly as close a fight as I thought it would be. If that lizard isn’t at least wounded by the time it’s finished with them, we may have a problem.” “D-do you th-think we c-can sneak aw-away?” I watched as the lizard readed back on its hind legs once more, with a hog held in one set of legs. It yanked and tore the squealing undead hog in two, while the forelegs swiped at any others who came near to try and rescue the unfortunate victim. “Oh!” Trixie blinked at me in surprise. “I mean...almost certainly, yes. It should be able to gorge itself on the hogs down there, and I can keep us hidden until it falls asleep or loses interest.” I managed to haul myself into a sitting position, and looked at Trixie. She was still watching the lizard, but she did glance back at me, and she bit her lip as our eyes met. I had to ask. “Y-you wanted to f-fight it?” “No! That’d be-” Trixie bit her lip again, and looked over at the bloody carnage. “Okay, maybe a little. It looks like it would be a real challenge for my skills, and you’d be the one doing most of the fighting while I kept it distracted with my illusions-” “I’m n-not doing th-that.” I interrupted. “Fiiiiiine,” Trixie said in a long whine. “I can fictionalize this adventure a little bit. When Trixie tells this story, however, you will be written out of it!” “Th-that’s fine,” I mumbled, as I turned my eyes back to the lizard. It seemed preoccupied now, as it shook another hog’s limp corpse around like a rag doll in its teeth. The hogs themselves had been thinned out to about five or six, and only a couple of them were even still trying to fight. One was lying on the ground with his hooves covering his face, while the others had scattered in different directions entirely. The guilt mounted as I pitied the hogs. I wished I could save one or two of them, at least, but Trixie likely wouldn’t help, and I could hardly do it on my own. Hopefully one or two would sneak away while the crystal lizard was busy wiping the main passel out. I chose to stop watching, and closed my eyes to focus on fire once more. My fire was...unusually active. It was normally a very static ember within my breast, but when I focused on it now, it seemed almost...jittery? Excited? It sparked eagerly, and my attempts to grasp and restrain the metaphysical concept at my core at least distracted me from the death occurring less than a hundred body-lengths away. Eventually, Trixie nudged my shoulder, and my meditation was broken. “Hey, the lizard’s leaving. The farmhouse should be clear soon.” I opened my eyes, and winced. There were noticeably less pigs present than when I had looked away, and the lizard carried a few carcasses in its teeth as it crawled back to the hole we had lured it from. At the very least, a dozen or so Ashen Wallowers remained, scattered around the field. So long as the beast didn’t return for them before they regenerated, they could perhaps make their own escape. We waited for a short bit after it had disappeared back into the quarry, before Trixie’s horn flashed, and the air in front of us crackled as a one-way illusion fell away. She took the lead clambering down the rock, and I was stunned by how easily she managed it; she’d clearly had a lot of experience with rough terrain, or at least climbing up and down steep surfaces. That made sense, if she really did travel as much as she said. I was not nearly so agile. I made it about halfway down before I lost my balance, and fell onto the stony soil with a yelp. My padded armor helped, but gravity was as cruel as it had ever been, and the back of my head still banged against the gravel. As I rolled to my hooves, Trixie sighed in annoyance. “I can’t believe I'm saying this, but If you’re quite finished being melodramatic…” I stuck my tongue out at her as I rubbed my new sore spot, but we started towards the fortified farmhouse a moment later. There wasn’t much of note as we crossed the field; only Hollowed hogs and their discarded weapons, or dull crystals pried from the lizard. I pocketed a couple in my barding, but it was all I had room for. Maybe Dinky would know something about them when I got back to her. The farmhouse had weathered the time very well, but it had still taken a toll on the structure. A worrying amount of stones had been pried free from their mortar, leaving pockmarked craters across the walls. The windows were in much the same condition as every other glass window I’d seen—which was to say, they were completely shattered, and only dull shards remained within the edges of the frame. The wooden supports were old and splintered, and the whole building groaned ominously as we crossed the yard. Trixie’s magic grasped the door and pushed in, but it barely moved before something thumped against it from the other side. Trixie furrowed her brow in confusion as she pushed at the wood again. “What-?” “No! No more! Ponies take enough already! Leave now!” We looked at each other, before Trixie chuckled loudly, so the Hog on the other side of the door could hear her. “You really think you can stop us? Little old you?” “Only until big lizard eats you! Then camp mine! All mine!” “Uh-huh. Sorry to tell ya this, but I don’t think that’s terribly likely, big ugly’s already gone. You may direct your thanks towards the Great and Powerful-” “Don’t care! Rut off! Ruin something else!” Trixie nickered in annoyance, and she slammed both hooves against the moldy wooden door, then gasped in pain. As she stepped back and rubbed her shoulder, I held up a hoof. “C-can I t-try? “Go for it, whatever gets this door open. I wanna tear this little oinker a new one.” “N-not that.” I stepped up to the door, and gently tapped it with my hoof. “H-hello?” “Said before, leave now!” “I kn-know. W-we will, we j-just n-need one th-thing. Then w-we’ll leave.” There was a long silence. Long enough for Trixie to finish rubbing both her shoulders, and start doing some light stretches while she gave me an odd look. I was about to try the door again when the response echoed through the wood: “Depends on thing. Not opening door.” “I-it’s a h-horseshoe. V-very thin. C-could pass it th-through the cracks. M-maybe it h-has an ap-apple-” I was interrupted when the Hog on the other side let out a frustrated snort. “Course! Course pony come for stupid trophy! Idiot! Idiot got all hogs killed over stupid trophy!” There was a rattling of tiny hooves on the other side of the door as the Hog stepped away. Trixie’s expression lit up as she reached for the handle again, but I bumped her with my shoulder, and she looked at me in confusion. “What? Wasn’t this your plan? Unless you’re seriously suggesting we just leave the loot here-” “Take!” A dark shape was crammed through a crack between the door and the frame, and fell to the ground as the door shook again. The pig went back to pushing against it, and Trixie shot me a glare as she plucked the shape from the ground. “Really? This is just any old horseshoe! It doesn’t even have an apple on it, the pig could have stolen this from any farm! We could have stolen this from any farm!” “Hah! Is stupid pony-shoe, nothing but bad luck! Got former Boss killed! Happy to be rid of!” I shrugged at Trixie. “If w-we can’t t-tell, how w-will Ap-Applejack?” Trixie rolled her eyes, and tossed the horseshoe to me. I fumbled to catch it, but it escaped my grasp and landed on the stony soil with a metallic clink. “Fine, whatever. But you can’t tell me you don’t want whatever loot these bandits had?” “N-not r-really,” I mumbled, as I picked up the horseshoe and shoved it into the collar of my barding. It didn’t do anything unexpected or magical, and it felt exactly like a metal horseshoe should have done. Just an ordinary iron shoe. “W-we got w-what we c-came for.” “But we could have so much more!” Trixie argued, with a stomp of her hoof against the packed dirt. I patted the horseshoe through my barding. “I’m n-not going t-to h-help you k-kill him. I’m g-going b-back to P-Ponyville. If y-you w-want to st-stay and f-fight, g-go ahead.” Trixe nickered again, and glanced between me and the door a few times as she weighed her options. When I turned to leave, she finally snarled, and started to follow behind me. “Fine! But only because Trixie refuses to be kept away from her wagon from any longer than necessary.” I turned to her as we walked away from the farmhouse together. “I d-don’t th-think Applej-jack will l-let you have it b-back af-after one j-job…” “Doesn’t matter,” she said, with a smirk. “All the Great and Powerful Trixie requires is getting back inside without an inhibitor on her head, and she can take care of the rest. Then she can come back here and take what she needs.”