Chapter X: The Empty Throne
"Thy Majesty? Thy Majesty?! Where art thou?!"
Scattered around the throne room were unconscious unicorn guards in golden armor and several servants. At the end of the room opposite from the doors, the throne stood unoccupied, with an ornate jewel-studded golden crown fallen on the purple velvet carpet in front of it. Starswirl ran about the room trying to wake each of the guards.
"Awake! Awake ye foals! Where is His Majesty? Awake, I say!"
None of the guards stirred. Whatever put them to sleep was highly effective. Starswirl resorted to magic and used a spell on a guard to wake him.
"Expergefacio et evigilo."
The guard's eyes slowly opened and, with difficulty, he tried to stand, but his legs were still too weak and he fell back down.
"Where is His Majesty?" asked Starswirl.
"I... know not, sir." the guard answered.
"What is thy name?"
"'Tis... 'tis Ferrous, sir."
Ferrous made another attempt at standing and with help from Fluttershy, he finally got back on his hooves. The Doctor approached one of the unconscious guards as Starswirl woke the other guards. He examined him with his sonic screwdriver and said, "Sleeping gas, looks like. The nasty type too. Blimey, something like this can even make a full grown dragon drowsy."
"What happened?" Twilight asked Ferrous.
"Yeah, who did this?" Rainbow Dash joined in. "I'll find them and make sure they pay!"
"Why would you want them to pay?" asked Pinkie Pie, "They didn't buy anything from you. You don't even own a store, Dashie!"
Everypony stared awkwardly at Pinkie. Rarity giggled and shook her head. Rainbow Dash facehoofed.
Ferrous cleared his throat to break the silence and proceeded to describe the occurrence.
"'Twas not long ago... Less than half of an hour, 'twould seem. The Sun is still upon the same place in the sky. I stood by His Majesty whilst He had afternoon tea. He conversed with us about spoiled milk and the process of making cheese."
"Yes, and then He began to complain of the lack of banquets hosted by the nobles." said another guard who had just woken up.
"Silence, Silver! I am speaking!" Ferrous scolded, "But indeed, His Majesty went on to speak of the nobles. He hath some intriguing gossip as well. In particular, Lady Juniper of the Bridle Gem estate seems to hath become particularly well acquainted with one of the young sons of Sir Lionfall, if thou knowest my meaning. Ha! Her husband certainly won't be happy if he hears about that."
"Oh my," Rarity said, "How scandalous!"
Fluttershy tried to bring everypony back on topic, saying, "Umm... I don't really see how this is relevant. Shouldn't we try to-"
"And then," Ferrous continued, "in the will of the late Lord Derbus of Trottingham, he didst not pass his properties unto his eldest daughter by his current wife, but unto his son by his first wife, whom he supposedly disowned ten years ago."
"What?" the Doctor said, "Oh, now that has got to be a fraud!"
"What else hath His Majesty told thee?" Starswirl excitedly asked.
"But, uhh... excuse me. Shouldn't we be focusing on finding-"
"And there be that former peasant," Ferrous went on ignoring Fluttershy, "the one that hath risen up to great wealth and now mayhaps lies within reach being granted a noble title - Berry Catcher is his name, methinks. Well, somepony hath looked through his family history - which, mind thee, he keepeth very secret - and 'twould seem he is not a peasant at all, but a fallen noble. And not any mere noble, but the grandson of-"
"HEY!" Fluttershy yelled. Everypony turned to her and fell silent. Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Pinkie looked at her with shock and wide startled eyes. Fluttershy's face had the expression of the rage of a minotaur, while her shoulders were hunched and wings flared. Upon finding everypony's attention on her, she returned to normal and spoke.
"Oh, um, I just... I... well, don't you think we should be focusing on finding out what happened to the king, if that's okay. You know, that's sort of why we're here to begin with, so, um, I think we should do that, if you don't mind..."
"Yeah! Let's find the king!" Derpy said in agreement.
"Alright, let's get 'er done." said Applejack, "Now what happened to His Majesty after all them gossip you gone talked about."
Ferrous, embarrassed that he was so distracted, tried to continue "Oh, yes, indeed, that. Um..."
"A box." said another guard, Armor Aurum, "A blue box. It appeared as from the air itself."
"Silence, Armor Aurum! I am speaking!" Ferrous scolded.
"Um, no offense," Applejack interrupted, "but I'm thinking maybe we should let somepony else tell us what happened. Somepony who won't be goin' off on any tangents about them nobles."
Ferrous conceded. Armor Aurum smirked to see his commander humbled and proceeded to speak. "A blue box appeared. It hadst hoors and when they opened, forth came a thick fog. Mine vision faded and a faint figure of a pegasus appeared from the box. I saw nothing afterwards."
"The mist must hath put us unto slumber whilst His Majesty was abducted!" said Silver.
"Yup, sounds like sleeping gas. Let's see here." The Doctor probed the air with his improvised sonic screwdriver and checked the results. "Aha! Methoxyflurane! A high enough density of that stuff could knock a whole battalion of guards out in a snap."
Starswirl walked to the front of empty throne and dropped down to his knees. "Of all the days His Majesty would be lost, it happens today, upon my birthday. I hath intended to perform a minor age spell to revive some of His youth for Him. He hath for long spoken of wishing to battle in the front lines once more as he did in his youth." Starswirl stood back up, picked the crown up from the ground and looked at it intently before placing it gently on the throne. Then he stomped his hoof in anger "What sorcery is this? Who could perform such an accursed feat?"
"Well, I'm no expert in sorcery," the Doctor said, "but I think I have a pretty good idea who's responsible for this..."
The Doctor sniffed the air and smelled something suspicious. "Wait a minute..." he probed the air again with his sonic screwdriver and looked at the results. "Oh... that's a problem."
"What's wrong, Doctor?" Derpy asked.
"There's still enough meth - methoxyflurane, I mean - in the air to knock us out if we breath it for fifteen minutes."
"How long have we been breathing the air?" Twilight asked.
"Well, since we spent a good five minutes talking about the nobles' affairs, it's..." the Doctor checked his watch for the time before continuing, "Oh, of course, it's been fif... fifteen... fifteen mi... oh, here we go... Goodnight every... pony... zzzzzzzzzzz"
Everypony in the room collapsed and fell to sleep.