Now that she had a better idea of what she was doing, Applejack swiftly ran down the rocky road where she had fought “Karza” only a few days earlier. Running straight back to Maple Town. While at the same time a lot of questions were running through her mind. She had never suspected him at first, he just seemed like any other villager, why was he doing this? And how did he create Karza and do that stuff to begin with? Maybe he wasn’t just some ordinary unicorn. Applejack didn’t know but she intended to find out. Mayor Rooter, Sure Suture, Melody Jewel, and the others… they were all good ponies, Applejack was certain of that, and she didn’t want to distress them if possible. All she would do is find out where Blast Miner was and take care of things herself. And if things didn’t go exactly as planned then hopefully she could still rely on them. If they trusted her over their fellow villager that is. It’s not like she had any proof.
Hopefully it wouldn’t come down to something like that.
Applejack still didn’t know how exactly she would stop him either though. It’s not like she was going to kill a pony. No way, not even the worst pony. She’d just have to figure it out when the time came—cause right now she was drawing a blank. She still didn’t know his full capabilities and until she did any solution was just a guess at best.
Traveling down the road she noticed that most of the obstructions caused by her fight with Karza had been cleared away. The ponies of Maple Town likely fixed everything up shortly after Applejack left and now the pass was basically back to normal. Good. She didn’t want to have to run through torn up ground or navigate over all the excavated rocks and boulders.
Her eyes automatically glanced up at the sky again for just a moment—it was afternoon and starting to get into late afternoon. Two more days.
Plenty of time to save the world.
Applejack snorted and shook her head. It was all she had to work with and she was the type of mare to get any job done with the tools given to her. Normally it was a job she asked for though.
Taking a deep breath she decided to speed up and kick herself into overdrive. She had energy to spare and if she couldn’t beat a unicorn in a tussle then how’d she ever show her face in public again? Before too long she saw the forest that made up the western edge of Equinestan and knew she was getting close to Maple Town. Its walls weren’t visible yet as the forest it was inside was quite large but at this pace she should easily reach there in under an hour. There would be no relaxed jaunt through the woods, looking at the trees and the squirrels, stopping to smell the flowers, Applejack was going to be racing on through like she was doing the Running of the Leaves.
Once she got back into town she would find Mayor Rooter, ask where Blast Miner was, and then get him. It might even be easier than that, the first pony she recognized she would ask where he lived. Or perhaps if she was really lucky she’d spot him around first. She had the element of surprise going for her right now—Blast Miner likely didn’t know that she figured him out and even if he suspected she might know he didn’t know that she was coming back to Maple Town right now.
Applejack had this.
She easily kept up the pace she had been running at until she saw the familiar and welcoming walls of Maple Town. A grin pulled itself onto her face despite the situation, once this was over she’d like to say hi to everypony before she left again. Maple Town had after all been one of the nicer places she had visited on her journey.
Excluding one particular pony now though.
She ran right through the open gate and came onto the road flanked by maple trees, the actual town part of Maple Town still ahead. From here though Applejack could already see where the road opened up and buildings started to sprout up in town. She was going to make a beeline directly to town hall if she didn’t see anypony she recognized out and about.
Applejack took a deep breath as she rushed into town, past the first few buildings, while her eyes darted around looking for a few specific ponies.
She spotted one.
Mayor Rooter was outside the city hall, putting up some sort of poster on its walls while waving and saying hello to any local pony that walked by. Applejack sighed in relief and quickly ran up to him, she tried to keep herself composed, not wanting to come off as some sort of frantic crazy pony. As her hooves skidded to a stop behind him she saw the poster was for some sort of street party and he was happily humming along as he taped it up.
“Mayor Rooter!” Applejack loudly said to grab his attention.
He nearly jumped a little and turned his head to her, his eyes going wide before fully turning and greeting her joyfully. “Applejack! It’s great to see you again! We knew you must have defeated Karza and-”
“Sorry, Mayor, but I don’t have time to chat right now,” Applejack held up a hoof to stop him.
“Oh, um, alright,” Mayor Rooter was a little nonplussed but he still gave his full attention to her.
Applejack caught her breath and quickly looked around, a few other villagers were walking around, some even looking at the two of them, but she didn’t see Blast Miner. So she fixed the Mayor with a serious stare. “I need to ask you something, can you tell me where Blast Miner lives? I need to talk to him.”
“Blast Miner? Of course, his home is just up to the north of town,” Mayor Rooter pointed in the right direction. “It’s just a small house with a red door and a scraggly old welcome mat on the porch. You really can’t miss it.”
“Okay, thank you,” Applejack nodded and started walking to where he was pointing.
“Although if you want to see him you might have to wait a little while,” Mayor Rooter added.
Applejack stopped and dragged an annoyed hoof down her face before turning back to Mayor Rooter. “Why?”
“Well he’s out of town. Actually it was just about after you left and we figured out you had taken care of that criminal, Karza. He said he’d be away for a while and left,” Mayor Rooter said.
“Did he say where he was going?” Applejack asked—a little more loudly than she had intended.
Mayor Rooter shook his head. “N-No, just that he was leaving.”
Applejack rubbed her temples, frustrated and trying to think of where he might have gone. It came to her pretty quickly since there was really only one other possible place. “Where’s his family mine? You said it’s in the northwest reaches of Equinestan, can you give me some exact directions or maybe a map?”
“Well, sure I suppose… but why? Is something the matter?” The Mayor asked.
“It’s just some business. Just need to talk to him,” Applejack said. It was probably for the best she didn’t try and explain anything else if she didn’t need to.
Mayor Rooter shrugged. “Alright then. After everything you did for us I’m more than happy to help with anything you need. Let me get a map from the library for you. Would you like to come inside while you wait?”
She would like to get out of here as soon as possible but it seemed fate was going to make her stay around for a little bit. “Sure, thank you.”
Applejack stared intently at the map of Equinestan and tried to keep her eye from twitching. She saw dots labeled “Oak City”, “Elmsville”, and of course “Maple Town”. And then aaalllll the way in the top corner of the map, far away from Maple Town, she saw another dot labeled “Miner Family Mines”. It reminded her of how big Equinestan actually was and how spread out some of these city-states were from each other.
“Mayor… how long would it take for me to make it to those mines from here?” Applejack asked him.
“Oh I’d say a little over a day on hoof. If you started now you could probably reach Sycamore Grove tonight and then if you got up early enough the next day I think you’d be able to make it to Spruce City before midnight at least. Then it’s a short trip into the mountains to the northwest and the mines are right there, so you’d be able to get there by late morning the day after tomorrow,” Mayor Rooter said as he pointed out each city and finally the mines.
Applejack looked—Blast Miner’s family mine was only a short distance from Spruce City. Mayor Rooter was probably right, and it was probably a good idea to stop at that city for the night so she could fully rest before setting out to the mine early the next morning.
Which could indeed be the day the world was ending.
It was aggravating that she might be cutting things this close but what else could she do? Equinestan didn’t have trains or any faster way to travel and she couldn’t push herself to the point of exhaustion when she might have to fight Blast Miner at the end of it. After just barely being able to beat Karza she didn’t want to chance it when it was likely he was just as dangerous if not more so.
“Okay,” Applejack took a deep breath and kept looking at the map, memorizing the roads and exactly where she needed to go. She couldn’t let herself get too agitated. “I’ve got another favor to ask you then.”
“Go right ahead,” Mayor Rooter smiled.
“I hate to ask this of you, and I promise I’ll give back whatever I don’t use, but I need money. I still got a little in my bag but I’ll need enough to spend the night and get a meal or two at Sycamore Grove and Spruce City,” her skin nearly crawled as she asked. It just felt plain wrong to ask for money like that for nothing. Even if she was technically helping out by saving the world she still didn’t like for ponies to just hoof over money to her.
Mayor Rooter just continued to smile and shook his head. “Well you don’t need to feel bad about asking for that at all. We don’t know what Karza was doing but we still all see you as Maple Town’s savior. Because of you we won’t have any trouble with travelers coming to or from Elysium’s View either, the least I can do is give you some money.”
“Thank you very much, I promise that somehow I’ll make it up to you,” Applejack said.
“If anything this is me making it up to you for helping us with Karza,” Mayor Rooter shrugged. “Do you want to take this map with you too?”
“Yes,” Applejack nodded. “And sorry that I can’t stay longer but I need to get on out of here.”
“I understand, seems like you’ve got something important to do.”
“More than you know.”
With the map in her drawstring bag, Applejack made a swift run to the north of Maple Town. Sycamore Grove here she came. While she ran past the homes and buildings of Maple Town she was almost surely seen by a number of ponies who recognized her but Applejack couldn’t slow down or say hello to any of them. Before she actually left Maple Town there was a place she wanted to stop first anyways.
The red door of Blast Miner’s home was as easy to spot as Mayor Rooter said. And the scraggly welcome mat on the porch proved she was in the right place. As was the fact that it simply looked very empty at the moment.
Applejack caught her breath as she walked up to the front door, nervous, and not even sure if she had come here for a reason or not. She just wanted to see if there was anything weird about his house. Maybe anything he had left behind that pertained to what he might be doing, or might show proof of him being behind Karza at the least. She bit her lip as she brought up a hoof and knocked on the door first despite knowing it was probably stupid. Couldn’t help it—breaking in or even just entering without making herself known didn’t feel right.
Unsurprisingly, there was absolutely no response from inside and Applejack opened up the door on her own.
What greeted her was an empty house so devoid of anything inside it almost looked like nopony had ever lived here at all.
“This is… wrong,” Applejack grimaced. “He couldn’t have taken everything with him. Did he just live like this?”
There was nothing but the most basic furniture in the few rooms. No paintings, no pictures, no rug, no decorations, no flowers, it was devoid of personality. No—it was just that the pony here didn’t care enough for anything besides outside appearances.
Applejack immediately closed the door back up and left the house behind, running north. That home, if it could even be called that, told her everything she needed to know.
Only a couple of hours after Applejack left Maple Town did another mare arrive at it, holding a letter.