//------------------------------// // Gauntlet of Firestone, part 4 // Story: Twilight Gets a Puppy, Season 6 // by TDR //------------------------------// Twilight Gets a Puppy Season 6 By TDR Gauntlet of Firestone, part 4 [ Dragonlands] “So.” Bleu asked shifting on the rock she was stretched out on looking down at the current days contest.”How are the new foals of your brother?” “Not bad, still destructive as ever. I already have plans to load them up with sugar before I send them home the first time I foal sit them.” Twilight offered as Rahs snickered. “Wuff.” Rahs offered. “Meanwhile my brother here, who is from the bottom level of Tartarus, is planning to get them art kits for Hearth's Warming. He is also going to make sure that each kit contains, hoof paints, glue, and several tubes of glitter.” Bleu turned her head staring in horror at the demonically grinning moon dog. “Why do you ask?” Twilight questioned. “I was curious as to if you had a reason why they might both be gods. A lot of us thought it was your companion spell, but Maohk and Iinii's son, Star Cloud, is just a demi god.” Bleu hummed. “ A lot of the other gods were getting curious about it as well. Who all has the spell?” “Right now both the Princesses, Cadence, you, Iinii, and Aqua. I also had Celestia give it to.... give it to...” Twilight hesitates.” The Goddess of Healing, to double check everything.” Bleu nodded. “I get that but I also remember the geas you placed over the spell that we would forget it if we tried to give it to any one else. And I am highly curious why that is.” “Spike's suggestion actually. With that sort of thing to offer I can hold a lot of sway in various Council votes if I want something to go my way I have something of a bribe I can use.” “Clever drake.” Bleu chuckled looking back down at the current contest. There was a massive stone table set up down below with a pile of various ….things for lack of a better word atop of it. The items in question might have once been considered food, they were very much some sort of meat and fish and what might have been a bunch of charcoal bricks. There were no gems or stones of any kind in the pile as even the most porous of rock wouldn't be a issue for dragons and would hardly be a challenge. So plant matter and countless weird seasonings and various meats were 'cooked' and set before them for the competitors to eat a meal of it. The total by the end of it had dropped down to thirty left. But all of them were wary of the three that barely showed any sign of the bad food save being full. Scootaloo, Trixie, and Spike. Trixie claimed she had eaten worse at some dives she had been to on the road, places where 'health code' was little more than a suggestion some one mentioned a few decades prior. The other two were regularly forced to eat Sweetiebelle's cooking and anything short of acid was an improvement. [ Turtle Toga] The pirate island of Turtle Toga was used to oddities. Given it was a pirate haven, and a den of smugglers and ner do wells among others was hardly it's main oddity. That a city the size of Ponyville was build on the back of a massive sea turtle named El Toro, made it a bit odder. That the turtle was still allowing the city on it's back due to an agreement with a pink maned eco terrorist after she nursed him back to health cranked that up a little more and made the leaders of the town, villi onus as they were, wary only made it odder. While most of the town was filled with bars, seafaring suppliers , docks and airship docks, that changed with the storms that swept past or how deep El Toro swam that day, there were a few more permanent fixtures. The keep, simply referred to as The Barnacle, at the islands center was mostly unoccupied , but it served as a meeting place for the lords of the island, the top ten pirates ran the island with a shaky agreement that was not helped by the fact that the members of this Lords circle changed depending on success, failure, or if they survived. This keep was one of the few places that could survive if El Toro went under water. The spell protecting it put a bubble of air over the keep and a few blocks around it, leaving that part of the city the most expensive to live in. The rest of the city was either rebuilt constantly or was durable enough to survive the swim. Due to the price ranges involved most of this part of the city was markets and shops. The main drags on either side of the keep were called Market Street, and Portabello Road. While Market dealt with the run of the mill shops for food and supplies, Portabello road, street where the riches of ages are stowed, anything and everything a chap could unload is sold off the barrow. It was at this street that two individuals walked , a pony mare with a surprisingly large mane, and a towering yeti with a sword nearly as big as he was wearing a leather vest closed over his chest and stomach. The yeti and the mare with him gained a number of odd looks as they came through the city, though they were given a wide berth after the yeti split a pick pocket in half with his sword. The pair had been watched, though most of the attention was on the yeti as they made their way to a few shops and paid a rather hefty sum for a few items and a large amount of various rare regents. Most were only wary of yetis as a whole given what had happened with the Storm King, and the fact the crazed god was still missing, though aside from the pickpocket the yeti didn't bother any one else unless they bothered the mare he was with. Luckily most stayed away from her as well after the first because even if he hadn't killed the pick pocket, the white furred beast smelled of death, and the cold earth of the grave. His companion smelled like she bathed in a score of different types of perfume all at once, and hurt more noses than the yeti's scent did. Some more enterprising individuals followed after them, bribing the shop keepers for what they had purchased, as information was more valuable than mere trinkets sometimes. While the list was fairly vast, none of the items purchased seemed to fit together in any way, and neither did the more exotic herbs. Rumors spread about that some of the items were thought to be used in necromancy, and at least one of them was a supposed alicorn amulet. The others were old lost relics from the dead empire of the rams, and a bracelet supposed to have belonged to the goddess Law. There were also a few questions asked about n item called the Misfortune Malachite, though there were several others after those rumors so another pair hunting for it was hardly a worry. By the time it was decided to simply dispose of the collected lists for lack of visible profit, the pair had re-boarded their airship and left the island.