“-and that was when Purple Heart and Wits End had to sit down and explain what a ‘waifu’ was. Twilight had to use a silence spell so they could finish the explanation. Because Light Patch was laughing so hard,” Pinkie finished.
“I don’t remember you being much quieter,” Rainbow chortled.
“I couldn’t help it! You remember the look on their faces?! Witty was all-” Pinkie did her best imitation of Wits End’s face for that conversation.
“And Purple Heart looked like somepony had just kicked him, but he was sitting next to the princesses and had to hold the scream in!” Rainbow joined in with an imitation of the stallion’s face.
“They sound like some interesting ponies to know,” Winter Sun commented.
“They are, which is why it’s so weird two of them are villains. And who knows what the one we’ve chased up here is up to,” Rainbow sighed, shaking her head in frustration.
“Even I can’t figure out what he’s up to. None of my usual methods have worked. I even tried asking nicely,” Pinkie complained, trotting along behind.
“Well, with any luck, answers should be close at hoof,” Winter Sun assured, leading the group around a bend in a canyon.
“Unless we’re near a town, I doubt that,” Rainbow replied, mindlessly following as she looked at the canyon wall. Her wings flared, lifting her body and her thoughts into the air. It took her mind a moment to catch up and she realized that it was a sign she’d just avoided.
“I was gonna let you know we were almost at Glacier Host, but you both seemed so caught up in the story,” Winter Sun said, trying and failing to hide the smile on her face at Rainbow’s stupefied expression.
“I guess time does fly when you’re having fun with a pegasus,” Pinkie cheerily chimed in.
“What can I say but, ‘I’m just that awesome’.” Rainbow Dash preened proudly.
“Almost as modest as the ‘big damn heroes’,” Winter Sun snickered. Her snickering broke out into full-on laughter at the mock angry glare Rainbow Dash threw at her. The trio continued to laugh for several minutes, drawing the looks and glances of some of the locals.
“So, now that we’re here, you’ve got a package to deliver, right?” Winter Sun asked, wiping a tear from her muzzle so it couldn’t freeze.
“Right! Time to try to find a pony we got a rushed description of and have never met before!” Rainbow Dash declared with a sardonic smile. A spark of hope lit her face up. “I don’t suppose Pinkie Sense could help?” The party pony looked thoughtful for a few seconds and then scrunched up her face in serious concentration.
She stood there like that for a minute and just as Winter Sun was about to ask if she was okay, her mane suddenly poofed out a little further and her tail curled up into a spiral and she hovered just above the snow. Almost as abruptly, Pinkie’s mane and tail returned to normal and landed in the snow.
“No luck on finding Moon Dancer, but we are about to be shaken down for money,” Pinkie replied, still smiling despite the information she’d just relayed. Both of her companion’s shared a quick look and opened their mouths to speak but were cut off by a deep laugh behind them.
“Looks like I’ll have to be giving you the Oracle Discount,” the owner of the laugh said. “Like your pink friend here said: there's a toll for entering this little town.”
Winter Sun and Rainbow Dash wheeled around to find a minotaur in scrap piece armor looming over them. “Yeah, and what’s the toll-paying for? Not like there are any roads to maintain,” Rainbow retorted, flying up to look the minotaur in the eyes.
“Why? You’re paying for the furtherance of the arts and history. Helping to fund the archaeological dig site that is active in the area. By helping to pay for the security to keep scrupulous sorts from interfering with it.” the minotaur replied, his smirk not leaving his face as he spoke.
“Don’t worry, Dashie, I got this.” Pinkie looked up at the minotaur. “I’m sorry to have to say this, but we don’t have any bits,” she said, prompting the other two mares to hide their mirth.
“We take donations of non-monetary goods as well. Food digging tools, or things we could sell your saddlebags for example,” the minotaur offered, knocking the negotiation back into the mare’s court.
“Welp, that didn’t work and I’m out of ideas. Your turn, Winter,” Pinkie said, quickly stepping to the side
Before Winter Sun could even begin to attempt to think of what to say, an armored griffon thudded into a heavy landing near them. The minotaur’s head whipped to look at the sound of the griffon landing and grunted when he saw the newcomer. The griffon locked eyes with the minotaur. “Why did you stop your patrol? You’ve still got another five blocks to cover!”
“I was discussing the possibility of donations to local archaeological dig sites,” the Minotaur growled.
“So you're shaking them down for chump change when the biggest payday we’d ever need is just days away. Typical short-sighted nature I’d expect from your rabble,” the griffon muttered loud enough for even the mares to have heard.
“I can’t spend money from three days in the future today!” The minotaur grumbled back. The mares thought about credit but wisely kept their mouths shut.
“What do you even need to spend money on? Food and shelter are being provided for free. You've even got access to Tallon Mercenary armorers and weaponsmiths, not that you’d ever thank us for that.” The griffon scoffed, cawing with disdain.
“Our weapons were good enough and we’ve maintained ourselves! We don’t need extras to do all of the needless tasks your bureaucracy and professionalism have burdened you with! Look at all that armor you need to protect your fragile bodies! It’s no wonder you have to have dedicated armorers when you’ve got too much armor and gear to maintain it all yourselves!” the minotaur retorted.
“At least we have armor! You Bowgunners charge in just whatever rags or scrap metal you can find! It’s no wonder you gave up being disciplined! You need so many members to replace your losses, you don’t have time to train! Just give them a vaguely sharp stick and send them in!” The mares looked at each other as the two bandits continued to argue. They looked around to find the streets empty. There weren’t even any signs of other bandits that could break the spat up.
“I think we should break them up before they start fighting. Something is telling me that would be very bad,” Pinkie whispered.
“For once, I don’t think we need Pinkie Sense to confirm that. I’ll try to talk to the griffon if you’ll both try to talk the minotaur down.” Rainbow suggested. Pinkie nodded and wrapped her hooves around Winter Sun, dragging her to the minotaur before she could even try to voice her opinion of the plan.
Rainbow turned and trotted to the griffon who looked affronted at the interruption to his argument with the minotaur. “Why are you even wasting your time with him? Surely you’ve got more important things to do.”
“Someone has to keep that undisciplined rabble on task!” The griffon replied, adjusting his armor and glaring over Rainbow.
“It is hard to match or surpass griffon discipline,” Rainbow agreed, trying to stroke his ego, something she remembered that worked pretty well on Gilda.
“Only your Wonderbolts and the Zebra Shamen Elders truly come close,” The griffon stated, missing the small hint of a snarl on the pegasus’s smile.
“I must admit I’m surprised to see any griffons this far north. It’s got to be a bit cold to be comfortable in the armor you’re wearing,” she noted, spotting the armor looking less well-fitting than she’d have normally expected.
“We do have to wear an extra gambeson to keep the armor from sapping all of our body’s warmth,” he replied, looking at Rainbow. “You seem to be more familiar with griffons than an average pony.”
“What can I say? I like excellence in my friends,” Rainbow replied quickly with a shrug, again trying to stroke his ego and play to the arrogance he’d shown earlier. “And you seem like an extra cut above the others.”
“True,” the griffon said, with a smug smile. Rainbow mentally smiled, sensing an opportunity to get a little extra information out of him.
“So, what are you doing so far north anyway?” she asked, carefully edging around to the side to keep the griffon from looking at the minotaur again.
“Tallon Company’s commander heard of a strong opportunity we’d have been idiots to not take advantage of.” Rainbow had to smother a look of disdain when she’d heard ‘Tallon Company’. She’d heard a lot about them from Gilda of how they were mercenaries in the same way oats were cereal. Just because it could become it in the future doesn’t mean it was now, she sighed to herself.
“So why waste your valuable time here? I’m sure you have more important business. My friends and I can keep a lid on things here.” Rainbow looked around the griffon to see Pinkie clinging to the minotaur’s arm as he flexed while Winter Sun just glared in silence. The griffon had also turned to look and saw what was happening.
“Well, I suppose I should be getting back to Groundhog Labyrinth.” He gave a side-eye to the blue pegasus. “Make sure the security is balanced properly if you get my underlining.” The griffon glared at the minotaur before suddenly turning around and taking flight. Rainbow didn't get what he meant, but she knew she should be worried about it. Shaking her head, she trotted over to Pinkie and Winter Sun only for the minotaur to look right at her.
“Where’d that armored featherhead go off to?” he asked with a snort.
“I don’t know,” Rainbow said with a shrug. “Someplace he called ‘the Groundhog Labyrinth’.” The minotaur groaned.
“That's their dumb code name for the dig site. They’ve been making every excuse to stay near it while having us go out on patrols. Like they think we’re dumb enough to not see what they’re trying to do.”
“What are they trying to do?” The minotaur looked at Pinkie and lifted her off his arm to set her down on the ground.
“Be the ones in place to take control of the Orb when it’s ready to be moved. Not that we’ll let them take it easily,” the minotaur said as he stalked off in the direction the griffon had flown. The three mares watched him walk off in silence.
“I get the feeling we only delayed the fight,” Pinkie stated with a slight frown on her face.
“I still don’t see why we stopped the fight in the first place. They’re both from the groups that ruined my family’s farm,” Winter Sun snarled.
“I’m really glad you managed to stop them. We’re not ready for the bandit civil war yet,” Moon Dancer said as she joined them. Winter Sun and Rainbow both started in surprise whereas Pinkie just continued to pronk in place. “You must be Rainbow and Pinkie. Twilight said you had a package for me?”
“You’re Moon Dancer?”
“I am.”
“Then yep, we do have a package for you! It’s nice to meet you!” Pinkie greeted, suddenly hugging Moon Dancer, causing her to freeze.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Moon Dancer said as she pried Pinkie off herself. “I need to study the spell Twilight sent me. I’m afraid I don’t have much time left before I have to use it.” With that, Moon Dancer turned and started to lead the others to a nearby inn.
* * *
The leaders of the two bandit groups sat across from each other, impotently glaring in silence. Neither wanting to admit to their share of the blame for the position they’d found themselves in, nor did they want to blame the other knowing that would only make the situation harder.
“Blaming anyone wouldn’t really solve anything,” the minotaur leader finally admitted with a sigh, “but it would make me feel better.”
“We can always blame our cloaked leader,” the griffon offered with a shrug.
“Do you really believe that’s true?”
“I believe he played more of a part than we thought, but...” The Tallon leader banged a balled up claw onto the table. “He doesn’t shoulder all of the blame, nor does that mare leading the civilian side of the dig.” He sighed, stopping short of naming himself or his counterpart as being at fault.
“Agreed,” the minotaur leader said with a nod. “The question is, how do we stop this rift from deepening further?”
“No more shared patrol or security zones. You do half and we do the other half. The dig site will have to continue as a shared duty, but we station ourselves there and run herd on our personnel there,” the griffon commander decided.
“Sounds reasonable enough. I think there’s a map here we can look at and decide,” the minotaur leader said, getting up to amble over to a barrel of maps they’d gathered. “The sooner we can separate patrols, the sooner everyone calms down.”
“We can separate our people, but until we agree on an answer to the big question, we could split the world in half and still have friction between our units,” the Tallon leader said, prompting the Bowgunner’s leader to freeze before walking silently back to the table. The guards in the room tensed as the chill in the room separate from the temperature outside settled in again as the two leaders stared at each other in the cold silence.
“Fine.” The Bowgunner leader turned, dropping a map of the Crystal Empire onto the table. “How ‘bout we address the hippogriff in the room? This whole ‘split the world’ malarky you’ve been going on about since day one.”
“It’s hardly ‘malarky’,” the griffon growled. “The Orb represents something.”
“Yeah. It represents a great bloody stick to bash ponies with until their bits fall out of their pockets.”
The Tallon leader scoffed. “Just like bandits to think only in terms of money and violence. The Orb represents legitimacy. It represents the birth of a new-”
“Blah, blah, blah. You wanna go legit? Be a real bunch of mercs instead of some griffon thugs in fancy outfits? Go back to Griffonstone and sign some papers. See if your king’ll put you on the payroll. If you’re lucky, there’ll be some sea raiders you can fight for some quick cash.”
Feathered mane bristling, the Tallon leader’s claws dug into the table. “My soldiers are wanted griffons here in Equestria. We’d never be able to operate here legitimately if we left with our tail-feathers between our legs!”
“Ya ain’t working here ‘legitimately’ unless somepony hired you to start a war while I wasn’t looking. Did you turn into poor, lost circus performers while my boys were roughing up some grub?”
“Any food you could rough up is barely even fit to eat,” the griffon leader groused, jerking his head towards a fireplace while looking at the griffon guard. “Damn this cold.” He looked back at the Bowgunner’s leader. “With the legitimacy of the Orb, we could get out of these frozen wastes.”
“There’s something we can agree on. We can stop sulking about in the cold fringes of society where we’re kept too weak to be worth finishing. Stuck fighting over scraps.” The minotaur watched the griffon guard throw an additional log or two on the fire. “With the Orb’s ‘legitimacy’, we could move back to warmer lands and richer towns.”
“And what would you even spend your new found wealth on?” the griffon shot back. “They wouldn’t run their shops, they’d just run for their lives. Or shutter the buildings and leave a pile of gold in the middle of the town.
“So we’d force them to open their businesses! We’d have the power to do that!” the minotaur replied confidently.
“Hah! If you went to Lunabucks, they’d spit in your latte! I know I would,” the griffon muttered.
“And how would yours be any better? Your legitimacy might free you from the law, but you’d still be treated as the bandits you’ve always been seen as.”
“It would be a step, and we’d be able to do things to change our public image.”
“You can shine rust all you want, but it’s still rust. Even after every member pardoned is long dead, your precious Tallon Company would still be remembered as ‘the bandits who bought legitimacy and traded their freedom away’!” the minotaur shot back.
“We’d have freedom to spend our money!” The Tallon leader leaned across the table, glaring daggers at the minotaur. “You want to use the Orb? Let me explain to you what would happen in terms you can understand with those horns squeezing your brain.” The minotaur bristled, but the griffon cut him off. “Yes, you can get ponies to run by waving the Orb around. For a while, that is. Eventually, those featherbrained princesses will get sick of all the trouble you cause, and you’ll end up a statue in their garden. And the moment you actually use the Orb? You’ll be lucky if they banish you to the moon.”
The Bowgunner’s leader grit his teeth with a sound like scraping iron. “Then we use the Orb on the princesses and-”
“HAH!” The bark of laughter reverberated through the cold room. “Use the Orb on the princesses?! Haven’t you heard what’s happening in Equestria right now? They don’t even have their princesses in the capital, and they’re already fighting hoof-to-hoof with an invading force! Their precious sister princesses were attacked by an overwhelming force, driven into hiding, and now the ponies are fighting even harder! Without the princesses, you wouldn’t be a defeated villain!” The griffon leaned in closer, now within arms’ reach of the minotaur. “You’d be a Wonderbolt’s new leather jacket!”
“How dare you! My grandfather was turned into a leather jacket!” the minotaur shouted back, smashing his fists into the table.
“My apologies,” the griffon replied sincerely.
The minotaur snorted. “Thanks.”
“I wasn’t apologizing to you! I was apologizing to whoever ended up with your grandfather as a jacket. I'm sure it was the worst they’d ever had!” The griffon laughed as the minotaur rocketed upright, throwing the chair backwards and reached for a weapon that wasn’t there, causing the guards to tense. The griffon had also noticed this movement and used his wings to leap over the back of his chair and into a fight stance. Before either could make another move, the doors to the room banged open as a heavily armored griffon and a female minotaur rushed in.
“A fight broke out between our groups!” the female minotaur grunted, slightly out of breath from having run as fast as the accompanying griffon could fly.
“She's right! And if we don’t do something now, it’s going to be the spark to ignite this whole powder keg we’re sitting on!” the armored griffon said. He blinked, having finally looked at the leaders. “Looks like there’s more than just one spark.”
“Can it, featherhead,” the female minotaur snapped. “He is right, boss. If we don’t stop this now, it’s going to spread.”
The two leaders looked at each other. “It’s too late to order them to stand down,” the minotaur noted.
“Even mine wouldn’t at this point. They wouldn’t act out right, but the number of disagreements would rise considerably. Of that I’m sure,” the griffon leader stated.
“They might if we had a good reason to,” the Bowgunner’s leader growled coldly. “But we’d both have to be stating the same reason.”
“It would have to be about the Orb. That's the source of friction.”
But we don’t share the same idea for the Orb, they both thought darkly, staring at each other silently. They stayed quiet for several minutes, clearly working things out in their heads, but the silence caused their respective second-in-commands to fidget. They knew that the longer their leaders waited, the worse the situation outside would get.
“There is really only one way this is going to play out now,” The bowgunner’s leader stated calmly.
“Agreed,” the Tallon Company leader said. Before either of the second-in-commands could ask, the Bowgunner’s leader suddenly kicked the table into the air and smashed it, sending the pieces flying towards the Tallon Company leader. The Griffon leader leapt over the shattered remains of the table and dove at the minotaur, claws stretched out.
* * *
Moon Dancer sat at the table, rereading the last lines of the spell for what felt like the five hundred and eighty ninth time. Probably because it was, she thought sardonically.
It’s not that she didn’t understand the spell. She knew the spell in its several obvious components. She was able to identify the spell as having been made up of three smaller spells, and several component spells. It was a complex spell in how things fit together, and obviously made in a rush; and crudely too, considering the nature of the component spells.
But as a whole... that's where she was confused. She could identify how each one was meant to work individually, but with them working together it was a bit like trying to read a book in a language you didn’t know, and with only a translation dictionary. You can get an idea, but getting the full picture takes a lot of time. Time she wasn’t sure she had, which made it all the more frustrating that she was struggling with this spell.
Well, even that isn’t true. She did get the spell and what it was supposed to do, but she had this feeling that... something didn’t add up. The spell felt incomplete, but it wasn’t. The full spell was all there on the page before her. Wasn’t it? she thought. She sighed and looked up at the room she was in, needing to not look at the spell and notes for a moment.
The others in the room had already started to leave; she felt bad not interacting with them, but she really needed to study this spell before she used it. Although, the more she understood the spell, the more hesitant she was to use it. “If I’m so concerned about using this spell,” she muttered, “then I should figure out exactly why and fix it before I have to use it.”
With a new determination burning in her eyes, she reached for scratch paper to try altering the spell and see if she could figure out her issues with it. She spent several minutes playing with the spell, each experiment helping her find why she was so skeptical. After about an hour, she could feel that she was very close.
...She’d be closer if things weren’t so noisy outside. She was about to open a window and yell for silence, when a griffon exploded through it.
Moon Dancer dove under the table to the other side and checked the griffon long enough to be sure it wasn’t attacking. The sounds outside solidified, and she looked to see a battle being fought through the broken window. She was happy to see the two bandit groups fighting each other, along with what appeared to be a rainbow afterimage, along with flashes of pink followed by deep bangs and confetti. She smiled for a moment, enjoying the moment of satisfaction as the plan all came together; she hated to admit it but Light Patch was right about it.
Her eyes widened as she realized something: this was the perfect moment for Light Patch to grab the Orb without interference. She grabbed her saddlebags and put her cold weather gear on as fast as she could. Before she left the door, she glanced back at the table full of now partially snow-covered spell notes. She quickly snagged Twilight’s notes and rushed out the door, hoping that she wouldn’t have to use the spell.
Not that she couldn’t cast it, but she had a strong feeling that she didn’t know what would happen when she did.