//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: What We Live For 
// by Osper 
//------------------------------//

	Despite the bright sunshine, Quill felt gloomier than normal. The previous nights “fun” activities of lying to the guards and almost getting thrown in jail colored his mood poorly but if he and his new assistant could gather what they needed today, they could turn around the entire Macintosh debacle.
That had been enough for his Editor to let him get away with missing the last few deadlines and a promise of a big story sealed the deal.
Spike stood in front of the library almost eagerly fidgeting, a large, full backpack somehow not tipping him over.
“Ready?”
“You still didn’t tell me what we were doing today. And how exactly are these-“
And he gestured a clawed thumb at the backpack filled with the tools Quill had requested last night.
“-going to help with detective work? I mean, you didn’t even ask me to get a fedora or anything.”
He was quiet, not wanting to answer until they were out of town and down the road. What he had to say was not for everypony’s ears and the still high presence of royal guards definitely would find what he was saying interesting but for all the wrong reasons.
Quill nodded Spike along the path, the two heading outside of town along a mostly un-traversed road near Gloomy Gulch.
“Well, through certain sources, and a little reading of Basic Magical Construction, I learned that the bodies of the six alleged murder victims may have been homunculi or magical slaves, workers, bodies for whatever.”
“Oh, Twilight made one of those once. A very small bronze golem.”
Quill nodded.
“But homunculi are made of flesh and bone. With a little work, you can make them look like anyone you like-“
“Like the girls!”
“Precisely. But I got to thinking, if there were certain physical traits that couldn’t be known by very many ponies, maybe they wouldn’t have been replicated.”
They stood in front of the wrought iron gate to the Ponyville cemetery, Spike’s mouth falling open a bit. He looked at Quill as nervousness crept into his voice.
“Why are we h-here? What kind of traits?”
The grey reporter cleared his throat, talking a little lower even though the place was deserted. He pulled open the creaky gate, intentionally not looking at Spike. He imagined he had the same look on his face.
“Through a little investigation, I learned that Fluttershy broke her leg a few years ago. If we can get nurse Red Heart to confirm the bone we’re looking at was never broken, we have a serious case.”
“Wait, stop.”
Spike put his hands up, stopping Quill before he could go any further.
“We’re digging up graves.”
“Yes.”
A cold wind blew through the cemetery, an eerie rustling in the trees.
“Dude…c’mon. There’s some…other way, right? Did you read the whole book? You read the whole thing right? We don’t have to cut open her maybe-body and pull out a bone, right?”
“If we can prove to Celestia that the girls aren’t dead, we’ll be able to get her to send someone to investigate and stop uselessly chasing Macintosh. If we have to desecrate a grave or two and carve up a body…”
Quill stopped a moment, his stomach rising into his mouth as he realized what he was saying. Fluttershy was the girl he’d never had the courage to tell how he really felt and it would have to be her to be the only one with a bone break wouldn’t it? It would have to be her coffin he’d dig up and her faux-body he’d cut open…
“…Yes. We have to.”
The girl’s fresh graves were grouped together, a marble memorial statue standing guard over them with each girl standing in their own dramatic pose in the totem structure. Celestia had seen fit to give them a fancy bit of final resting place, the group having saved the entirety of Equestria more than once.
A long look around revealed no one else in any part of the cemetery, Quill wishing they could have done this at night but time not permitting.
Spike dropped the back pack, dragon and pony taking shovels and digging into the freshly turned earth, not eagerly but quickly. Hopefully the official caretaker had better things to do than his job.
Time passed and dirt piled up around them, the sun passing above like Celestia’s all-seeing eye, watching them vigilantly. Neither looked up.
It was three hours before the thunk of a shovel against wood signaled they’d finally made it down through the six feet of dirt.
“Is that it?”
Spike looked down from his seat at graveside where he’d been resting.
“Yeah. Bring the crowbar down. You have hands, it’s probably easier for you to open it up.”
“M-me?”
Curse those deft digits of his.
He hopped down, the crowbar in hand. They shared a look and Spike lodged the bar between the earth and the casket, propping open the lid. He waited, closing his eyes and steeling his nerves before reaching down and flipping the lid open fully.
Quill’s gasp told Spike everything he needed to know, especially that he was right in not looking, his eyes hidden behind his claws.
“What is it? Is it bad?”
“This is weird. Look at this.”
“Do I have to?”
He peeked anyway, squinting a bit. What he saw made him immediately cover his face again.
“Why would you make me look at that!?”
The coffin was filled with a yellow sludge, a puddle of pink around where the head should have been. A pony skull stared back up at them, half submerged in the goo along with the tips of the whole skeleton.
“Spike, you do realize ponies don’t melt after death?”
His hands lowered a bit, thinking it over.
“Oh yeah. Wait, let me look.”
Hopping up to the edge of the hole, he got the book from the backpack, opening it to the marked spot on Homunculi.
“You didn’t read the whole thing, what kind of reporter are you?”
“Just tell me what it says.”
“The magic drain for keeping an animated servant is constant. Depending on the material used in construction, the servant will either go dormant or be irrevocably destroyed.”
“Planning a little Necromancy?”
Spike dropped his book down into the hole where it landed in the coffin, splashing Quill with whatever medium had been used in the body’s creation.
Two royal guards, both Pegasi, were behind him, standing imposingly over the young dragon. The cemetery caretaker stood off in the distance, watching.
“This is the kind of thing you get banished for. Out of the hole.”
Once they were in a dungeon cell the odds of getting anyone to listen to their discovery dropped dramatically.
“Spike, do you have any quills and paper?”
“No.”
“Find one and take a letter. Please. Quickly. To Celestia.”
“Alright you two, quit fooling around. It’s the dungeons for you. Necromancy is a serious-“
Spike jumping on the surprised Pegasus back and yanking a feather out ended any chance at leniency as the Pegasus bucked wildly trying to throw him off. If he hadn’t had the opportunity to perfect his rodeo riding during the Iron Pony competition he’d have been flung immediately but managed to hold out, feather in teeth, claws gripping wings.
The second Pegasus took off, trying to grab hold of the dragon. The tugging on his tail pulled him back, Quill having clambered up to the edge of the hole and grabbed it in his teeth. The Pegasus reached out and grabbed his partner, all four tumbling back into the hole and into the anonymous goo.
A guard put Quill in a choke hold, Quill throwing him into the side of the hole and trying to shake him off.
“Spike, write!”
Spike fell from the Pegasus back, the book just beneath him. Ripping the cover from atop it, the only dry part, he dipped the quill tip in the gooey mess and called for dictation.
“Dear Celestia. Harmony users bodies replaced with homunculi, girls probably still alive. Evidence in Ponyville cemetery.
-Quill and Spike, Royal Dungeon”
The guard dunked his head beneath the sludge, the end of his sentence ending in burbling as his hooves were cuffed. Whatever nastiness the bodies were made of, the taste filling his mouth really made him not want to know.
Spike, crushed between a wall and the guard holding him there even as he wrote, sent a jet of green flame over the note, watching it disappear and fly away in a gust of magical powder.
It was in Celestia’s hooves now.