"What do you suppose is down this way?" Starlight decided to break up the silence of the group by starting off the conversation.
"Only Celestia knows I guess," The blue pegasus responded with a laugh as she did a barrel roll in the air. She had to adjust herself with the pace of the group afterwards.
"Hopefully nothing s-scary..." The light yellow pegasus whimpered.
"I'm sure it won't be anything scary," Starlight assured the anxious pegasus. "And if it is, there's going to be two strong ponies here to protect you from whatever it is."
"Yay..." The mare quietly cheered. She definitely seem relieved with the reassurance.
They fell into silence again, the only sounds being their hoofsteps on the soft ground. As they approached the other side of the school, one major thing they became aware of was what looked to be a market plaza. Stalls were littered around the area advertising various things. Starlight took a closer look at one of the stalls in question. It appeared to be selling a variety of antique trinkets, ranging from small figurine statues to golden jewelry and helmets. She'd never seen a stall like this before, or ever at all; she figured these kinds of things were always used to sell food and jewelry.
"I never expected there would be a market over here," she said. "This is starting to seem less like a school and more like a small city."
"Yeah, why in hay's name would there be a market here of all places?" The blue pegasus landed on the ground, poking around in one of the other stalls that appeared to be advertising hay cakes.
"Maybe t-they have dorms?" The yellow pegasus said. "T-then the students would l-live here and could buy things t-that they need..."
"Well, even then, why would they be selling things like this?" Starlight tapped her hoof on the antique stall's sign. "I don't see what some kind of magical statuette would be needed for."
"Probably just some unicorn stuff they teach here that you don't quite know about," The blue pegasus pulled her head out from behind the stall and walked over to Starlight. "If you went here, you'd probably get it."
"Maybe." Starlight rolled her shoulders. "I wish there was somepony here we could ask."
"The only ponies we've come across have been just as lost as we are!" The blue pegasus groaned. "So far it seems like we've got no answers what so ever!"
"U-um, t-there seems to be some ponies coming..." The light yellow pegasus weakly spoke up before hiding behind the rainbow maned mare.
Starlight and the other mare looked up. It appeared a group of three ponies were approaching this area. One of them waved their hoof in the air, calling out a 'hello' to the group. Starlight nodded to the two mares before trotting over to the group of ponies with them following her.
"Hi!" Starlight tried to sound cheery as they stopped in front of the group. A unicorn and two earth ponies made up the group.
"Hi there," one of the earth ponies said. He was a white stallion, with a smooth voice and a mane that was barely a different shade from his coat. "You wouldn't happen to know where we are, do you?"
"Not a clue," Starlight sighed. "We all just woke up here and have been wandering around trying to get our bearings. There are more of us, but they're still exploring."
"This is getting uber ridiculous," the other earth pony said, flipping his hair up in the air.
This stallion had a cocky aura surrounding him, heightened by the blonde streaks in his caramel coloured hair. Something about him made Starlight even less excited to get to know him by more than just name. The vibes he was giving off weren't exactly ones that she wanted to associate with by any means.
"If somepony doesn't start giving us some answers, I'm gonna try busting in that big building to look for some myself," the stallion said with an annoyed snort.
"Don't do anything rash," The unicorn finally spoke as he put his hoof on the annoyed stallion's shoulder. He was a lighter blue, with hair that looked just as messy as the pink pony's that Starlight had met before. They gave off the same vibes to her. "I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this, we just need a little patience."
"And you said there's more of us?" The white stallion cocked his head to the side.
"There is," The blue pegasus trotted up beside Starlight, gently nudging the light yellow pegasus off of her back hoof so she could move. "I think in total there's been 10 of us from what that alicorn told us?"
The rainbow maned pony passed Starlight a glance. A silent nod was all it took to confirm that the information was correct. Starlight turned back to the other ponies/
"So that makes 13 of us with us finding you guys," Starlight said as she gestured to the stallions in front of her. "We've got no clue if the other groups have found more ponies. We're supposed to meet back at the gate to report things that we've found when we're ready."
"The gate?" The white stallion said. "You mean, an exit?"
"Don't get excited." Starlight shook her head. "We've already been trying to open it. Our magical inputs don't work, we've tried hitting it with magic, and this mare-" She motioned to the rainbow maned pegasus. "-even tried flying into it at full force. Not a dent. There's some sort of magical spell that's keeping the gate from being unlocked by normal means, and is also making it entirely indestructible. We've tried a few times to open it, but no dice."
"Damn," The stallion with the streaked hair cursed quietly. "So we just have to find another way out."
"At the moment, that's our only option," The blue pegasus replied. "We've got no real choice but to walk around this place until we get some clues as to what the hell's going on."
"Hey guys," The unicorn stallion spoke up. "I don't mean to interrupt, but it seems like some ponies just arrived over that way. That must be the gate this mare talked about." He pointed in the direction that a group of 4 ponies was occupying.
"That looks like that party pony's group," Starlight said. "Seems they've come across all that they could find at the school, and it looks like there's a new pony in the group. We should head over and say hello. Twilight and her group might come back soon as well."
The group nodded in silent agreement. They allowed Starlight to lead them again as they trotted to the gate. The group quickly noticed them approaching. More specifically, the excitable pink pony was the first to catch that they were approaching. She leapt onto the back of a golden stallion's, waving and shouting at the group. The stallion didn't mind, and in fact had a wide and playful smile strapped firmly to his face.
"Hey hey, look who we found!" The pink mare exclaimed. She sat down on the stallion's back, pulling back on his cheeks to widen his smile. "Doesn't he look like a super duper fun pony?"
"Well, you two certainly look like a good pair," Starlight laughed. "So, you found him while you were exploring?"
"Eeyup." The orange mare nodded her head. "He was out wanderin' behind the back of the school, not far from where Twilight and her group were actually."
"It seems they found some new ponies too," The white mare said. "A few more stallions for the bunch. They should be back at any moment and we can... recap."
"That sounds good to me." Starlight looked back at her group. "These 3 actually found us when we were exploring. We got distracted and the yellow mare alerted us to the fact that were approaching."
"Well, how many does that make us now?" The white stallion said.
"At the moment, there's 14 of us in total," Starlight responded. "And if there's more ponies with Twilight's group, then that should be our full total. I'm pretty sure we've explored every inch of this outer area. The only place left is the inside. Did you guys try getting inside the school?"
"I tried," The orange mare said. "Door's locked tighter than a cellar during cider season. Couldn't pull it, couldn't push, and buckin' it didn't work."
"It might be locked from the inside," The white mare mused. "I know I had the doors back in my boutique replaced so that they would do the same. It helped to prevent thieves in my establishment. A very smart business idea, if I do say so myself."
"Whoever's got us trapped in here must be waiting until we group up," The blue pegasus flapped her wings to fly above the group. "Why else would they keep us from getting in? We don't even know why we're here, it's not like we're going to ransack the place!"
"The only thing we can do is wait for Twilight's group to get back," The orange mare said. "Maybe they found somethin' useful."
"We don't have to wait long!" The pink pony hopped down from the stallion's back and pointed in the direction of the school. "They're coming back! Yippee!"
"Oh thank Celestia," Starlight sighed, stepping forth in preparation to meet them again. "Twiliiight!" She waved her hoof in greeting, bringing a smile back to her face so she looked welcoming.
"Hi again everypony!" Twilight said once the group had come close enough, even waving back at Starlight. "We found these two stallions while we were out."
Twilight motioned to the two stallions in question. Both of them were decently fancy looking. A white stallion with a long unicorn horn stood tall, almost taller than Shining Armor. His blonde mane was done in a slick and regal style. He looked like he was going to be worse to deal with than that stallion with the streaked hair; he didn't exactly give off the most friendly aura. The other one looked more manageable; a light brown earth stallion with spiked brown hair and a fancy bowtie on the neck. He looked smart, like he knew exactly what he was doing.
"I don't suppose any of you have any answers either?" The white stallion spoke up with a raised brow and judgemental gaze.
"Unfortunately, we're just as in the dark as you," Starlight replied, trying to be nice despite the insufferable tone he held. "But we're all in a group now, we should be able to report our findings."
"We'll go first," Shining Armor spoke up, stepping to the side so the eyes could be on him. "At the back of the school, there's a garden with a fountain, and bird baths all around. There's a larger entrance at the back of the school that connects to it, but we weren't able to open it to get inside. These two stallions were talking in the garden, so that's how we found them."
"We can go next," Starlight spoke up. All the eyes on her felt a little uncomfortable now that there were so many ponies. "On the left side of the school, there is a market plaza. It has stalls for antiques and foods, but they appear to be empty. While we were looking around, these three ponies approached us. We would've talked longer, but we saw the other group coming to the gate and decided to join them."
"Our turn!" The pink pony clapped her hooves together.
"Yep," The orange mare cleared her throat. "We explored around the front of the school and the right side. Door won't budge, so we can't get in for now. Right side of the school has the restaurant place, blocked up with that magic barrier. There's also a big ol' pool with some benches around. It's behind some of the restaurant buildin's, and thankfully we can get to it without bein blocked off. We found this stallion swimmin' about, havin' fun in the pool."
Oblivious to the gazes of the other ponies, Twilight was counting off to the side. For each pony she counted, she raised one feather in each wing. She opened the feathers on both her wings once, and opened four feathers when she had run out of the rest. When she had finished her counting, she spread her wings fully and spoke up.
"And with all our groups coming together, that makes 16 of us," Twilight said. "I took a headcount while we all were talking. It seems we've explored the entire campus, so this 16 should be our final number."
When Twilight finished talking, suddenly the ground shook. Each pony pressed their hooves further into the ground to get a hold so they wouldn't fall over. They looked up to see several poles extending from the ground. They looked like light poles, randomly strewn about on each of the paths. Once they were fully extended and pointed to the sky, a group of 3 megaphones sprouted in a triangular shape on each side. The sound of a mic turning on was heard, before a voice spoke.
"Testing testing, is this thing on?" It squawked, tapping the mic it held or was in front of.
It sounded like some sort of bird was on the other side of the microphone. It cleared is throat before it continued speaking.
"Good afternoon every pony, may I have your attention?" The creature asked. It didn't wait for an answer before it continued. "Now that you've all been acquainted, please report to the main lobby for your introductory ceremony! Don't be late; I won't wait forever!"
The doors to the school flew open, a loud thud echoing as they collided with the walls of the building. They opened so quickly it was a miracle they didn't snap off the hinges. The group exchanged glances, silence entirely encapsulating them. All at once, as if they read eachother's minds, they began to trot to the entrance of the school. They had no idea what would be inside, but they did know that they wanted to find out. Whatever this thing was that wanted their attention, they did know that they were afraid of it. Regardless of their fear, they had to have answers, and it seemed like this 'thing' was going to give them up.