//------------------------------// // A Little Detective Work // Story: Marabian Knights // by silvershad0 //------------------------------//         The oppressive sun was just starting it’s long journey across the sky as Vinyl searched the town square for her transformed friend.  It didn’t take too long to find her, however, as there was almost nopony out in the streets and the hamlet itself wasn’t even half the size of Ponyville.         The sorceress found Lyra at the entrance to one of the larger buildings trying to pry information from a pale looking stallion in a white robe.  It became quickly apparent from watching the scene unfold that he was much more terrified of the creature that stood before him now than he was to learn of the recent murder.           “Look, pal, we’re just trying to figure out what those creatures were and where they went so we can go after them,” Lyra said as gently as she could.  “If there’s anything you can tell us, it would be greatly appreciated.”         The stallion gulped, gathering his courage as he began to speak.  “They’re known as kobolds; small, scaly, distant relatives of dragons.  They live in underground dens directly east of our village,” he pointed to the direction he had mentioned.           “Speaking of your village,” Vinyl said appearing next to Lyra, “Where exactly are we?”           “You don’t know where you are?” the stallion looked at her suspiciously, now noting just how strangely dressed they were to be traveling in the desert.         “It’s a long story that would likely cause your head to explode.  Buck, I’m part of it and my head still hurts just thinking about it.”  Vinyl put a hoof to her head for emphasis.         “Right...” the stallion replied, shaking his head slightly.  “Well this was the quiet, little town of Puyayna, located in central Saddle Marabia.  But for the last two weeks it’s been...well, like this,” he motioned to all the different housings with ponies peeking out of the doors and windows with expressions of terror adorning their faces.         “That’s terrible!  Why hasn’t anypony done anything to stop this?”  Lyra turned back to him now wearing a frown.         “Most of our warriors tracked them down after their first attack on us, but only one ended up returning, badly wounded and too terrified to even speak about what went on down there.  Ever since then, we’ve all been too scared to even leave our homes unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he said with his head hung low. “That changes now,” Vinyl seriously stated, her eyes becoming focused as her blood began to boil in her veins.  If there was one thing she couldn’t stand, it was the abuse and terrorizing of defenseless ponies.  She had seen too much of that herself growing up on the streets and wouldn’t stand for it.         “Come on, Lyra, let’s go see if the others have found anything.  Then we can go roast some reptilians.”  Vinyl gave a sinister looking grin as as her eyes actually started glowing from behind her shades with a fiery passion, adding to her growing aura of anger.         “But shouldn’t we go question that survivor who made it back?” Lyra asked her nervously, not wanting any of her friend’s current wrath directed at her.         “No point,” Vinyl said with an even tone.  “It doesn’t matter what’s down there waiting for us; we have to stop it and that’s that.”           Having extensively searched the living room and kitchen already, Bon Bon now foraged through one of the two bedrooms while the other two looked over the other.  It was a mess much like the previous two had been, though far less had actually been destroyed.         ‘How curious,’ Bon Bon thought.  ‘Whoever did this obviously came in this room, but there are no signs of battle here, nor a chase.’  She glanced around the room once more, noticing all of the drawers had been pulled out of each dresser and the closet had been thrown open with little care, it’s contents scattered on the floor in front of it.         Then it dawned on her.  ‘They were searching for something!  And it must be important for them to have gone to such lengths looking for it here.’   She spent another few minutes searching for any more signs of just who ‘they’ were when she heard a shriek from inside the house.  She dashed from room to room toward the offending noise and walked through the doorway just in time to see a massive stringed instrument crash down into the closet onto a small framed, lizard-looking creature.  Sickening sounds of bones giving way to the massive impact vibrated throughout the room, the creature falling silent and motionless.  Bon Bon froze, standing stock still as her brain tried to catch up to the events playing out before glancing to her longtime friend and noticing she had two bolts sticking in her chest, a small trail of blood trickling from each.   Her righteous rage now leaving her, Octavia immediately started panicking regarding the intrusive shafts of wood now protruding from her.  She quickly moved to remove them before having her hoof swatted away by an angry looking Redheart. “Don’t touch that,” she strictly scolded the mare, “You’ll only cause further damage.  Just give me a second here,” she said as light began gathering energy into her hooves.  She muttered a small prayer to Celestia before pressing both hooves up to Octavia’s wounds and releasing the energy into the grey mare’s body, the bright light washing over the bolts and into the wounds themselves.         Octavia immediately felt the curative effects taking hold, feeling the tissue mend beneath her flesh and fur, slowly inching the bolts out into they plopped to the floor beneath her.  Instantly the pain was gone, only her memory serving as confirmation that the wounds had ever existed at all.         “That..That’s amazing Redheart,” Octavia managed to stammer out, still rubbing a hoof over her newly repaired skin.  “I can certainly see what all that fuss was about before pertaining to how amazing healing magic is in this world,” she softly chuckled a bit.           “I’m glad you’re ok now, Octavia,” Bon Bon interjected, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding,  “but there’s still the matter of what that creature is...or...was,” she said, grimacing at the broken figure still in the closet.         Inspecting it closer, the three noticed it was similar in shape to Lyra’s new form, albeit much smaller in size.  It had hands similar to hers as well, though each digit was equipped with a sharp, curved claw at the end and it had a long, reptilian head with jutted horn stubs on either side.         Bon Bon searched the creature’s corpse and pulled out a strange medallion from one of the pockets in its patchwork armor/shirt.  It was circular in shape, though not perfectly so, and made of a cheap looking wood.  A single white horn was crudely drawn in the center, curved at almost a ninety degree angle at its base and slightly less so in the opposite direction at the top.         “What kind of creature has a horn like that?”  Redheart asked, unable to take her eyes off of the strange trinket.         “It looks almost like a bull’s horn, though I’ve never seen one curved quite like that before,” Octavia said.  As the three quietly pondered to themselves, the sound of the front door opening could be heard.  Bon Bon deposited the medallion into her saddlebag before turning with the others, preparing for whatever had entered the house.         “We’re back!  And we’ve got good news,” Vinyl said merrily as Lyra and she made their way into the room.  Both noticed the dead creature at once and cringed slightly at its condition.  “Looks like you guys found something too, huh?” she said with a fake laugh, lowering her shades a bit to get a better look.         “That must be one of them,” Lyra suddenly said, remembering the old stallion’s description.  “A ‘kobold’, I think he called them.  They’re the reason for all of this,” she pointed an accusing finger to the closet.         “I see,” Bon Bon stated before remembering what she had learned.  “From the look of the room I was searching in, and this one as well, it seems, they were here looking for something.  Just look at how everything is either opened or turned over.” “Hmm, so they’re looking for something are they,” Vinyl spoke up with a small grin playing at her face once more.  “Well I’ll say they found something alright... trouble!   And we’re gonna be the ones to deliver it to them!” “That’s very noble of you, Vinyl,” Octavia said, leaning over to give her love a peck on the cheeks for her bravery.  “She’s right, for once.  I feel we have a duty to protect these ponies now that we’ve become involved, be they real or not.” The other three silently nodded in agreement as each started to put a hoof, and one hand, into a pile on top of the previous. “Wooooaah, hold up just a minute!” Vinyl yelled as she removed her hoof from the pile. Octavia mentally sighed to herself as she closed her eyes and began straightening her mane, waiting for her crazy marefriend to ruin yet another promising occasion with her shenanigans.. “I just think, you know, if we’re going to be a proper, world-saving group...Well, we should have a team name.” Vinyl looked to the group to gauge whether they felt the same. Octavia instantly facehoofed, not being able to control the action since the very first time she had met Vinyl.  ‘Always with the dramatics, even when an entire town is depending on us,’ she thought to herself. “Hey, that’s a great idea!” Lyra said, matching Vinyl’s grin.  “That way, when we’re famous, I can write an epic ballad about us.”  She began humming a lively tune as she pictured the group standing victoriously over a colossal dragon. “That does sound pretty cool,” Redheart added with a slight blush.  “After all, team spirit is important to the group as a whole.” “Not you too, Redheart,” Octavia whined before giving in with another sigh.  “Fine, but only if we all agree on the name.  I won’t be associated with many of the crazy things that will surely escape my love’s mouth,” she said, raising her nose up just a notch. “Yesss!” Vinyl hoofpumped, her grin growing three times in size.  “And I already have the perfect name.” “Oh, here we go.” Octavia braced herself for the oncoming assault to her precious braincells. “The Knights of Wub,” Vinyl said, ignoring her marefriend’s rude comment.  “Huh, what do you guys think?  You see, wub sounds kind of like love, so it works on multiple levels,” she stated as though there was solid science backing up her theory. “That’s a nice prospect, but why don’t we put that on the backburner for just a moment in case something better pops up?” Lyra pat Vinyl on the shoulder in a gesture to show that she meant no offense.   The room was quiet for a full minute as each quietly considered their own ideas.  “I do like the knight part,” Bon Bon spoke up, finally breaking the silence.  “It too works on multiple levels, since the whole reason we’re here is because of the Princess of the Night,” she let a chuckle slip through her lips at her own pun. “Ohh, I got it!”  Lyra said, pounding one of her fists into her other open palm.  “That guy we talked to earlier said we were in Saddle Marabia, so how about the Marabian Knights?”  She gave everypony a chance to mull it over for a second. “That’s brilliant, Lyra!  And one of my absolute favorite books,” Octavia said in a rare moment of giddiness in the presence of others. “Good going there, Lyra,” Vinyl congratulated the mare and put her hoof in to start the process once more.  Each of them followed suit and raised them at the same time, the whole group cheering “Marabian Knights!” at the end.  They burst into laughter afterwards before the gravity of the situation sunk back in, all becoming serious at the same time. “I guess we should get going then,” Lyra said as she filled the group in on where it was they would be going to confront the remaining kobolds.   “If we’re going to be trekking across the desert, we should really ensure we’re prepared for such a journey,” Octavia chimed in as the ever-present voice of reason and logic. “Good thinking,” Redheart added.  “We’ll need plenty of water and nonperishable foods, as well as blankets and tents for the night.  I’ve got plenty of leftover coin myself from character creation, so I’ll take care of those and meet you back here in half an hour.” “Alright, I’ll see about some more appropriate desert clothing for us, then,” Octavia said. “Cool, I guess we’ll just...wait here?”  Vinyl said as she shrugged to the other two.  They returned the gesture and sat down in the shade of one of the buildings. While they were just sitting around, Bon Bon told the other two about what had transpired with the kobold that had been hiding in the closet.  When she reached the part about Octavia getting shot, Vinyl nearly lost it. “Those no good, bucking little vermin!”  Vinyl spat in disgust.  “They were gonna get it before, but now, it’s personal!” she said, her words laced with venom. It wasn’t long before the others returned with the needed supplies, giving Vinyl plenty of time to cool off.  Each distributed what they had bought among the group, helping one another fit into the bulky, although strangely cool, robes. “They didn’t have anything quite...your size, Lyra, but I managed to find something that should suffice.”  Octavia handed her a long, slender cape that Lyra wrapped around herself as a makeshift robe. “If there’s nothing else, let’s get going,” Vinyl said impatiently with a hint of excitement in her voice.  “We need to repay those bucking kobolds for not only terrorizing the town now, but also hurting my marefriend!” she ended through gritted teeth.