Consider this a warning. We know full well that you will survive our sabotage, but at the very least, it should get the message across. Get out, or our first move will not be our last.
- The Imperium
“The...Imperium?” False tilted her head. “Who are they?”
“How should I know? I’m just reading the note.” Risk sighed and put the piece of paper back on the small table he, the rest of the Winter Solstice, and Zecora were all sitting around. “But from what I can tell, they don’t like Arrell.”
“No horseapples, Sherclop,” I grumbled. “Switching someone’s one-day leaf deterrent with grape juice isn’t really how you make friends.”
Zecora turned to me. “They seem to have been confident you would survive,” she pointed out. “Why take such a risk, then, if they knew you wouldn’t die?”
“Like the note says, it was a warning,” Risk replied. “Their way of showing they could kill him, I guess.”
I chuckled. “Except they couldn’t. Windigo biology for the win.” I kissed my foreleg the way a boxer would do after punching someone out. “Even if you guys didn’t switch that stuff out for real deterrent, nothing would’ve happened aside from another day or two of unconsciousness. I was already immune after just a day.”
“...are you giving exposition?” False questioned. “We already know this stuff.”
“Um...I didn’t,” Asylum finally spoke up. “I was away when all this happened.”
“See? My ‘as you know’ speech has been justified.”
Zecora cleared her throat, catching our attention. “What confuses me about this scene that took place, is how somepony got in and out without leaving a trace.”
“It must have been at night and they must have been quiet,” False observed. “None of us were here during the nights after the first, except Zecora, and I don’t think even she could stay up all night every night.”
“No, insomnia is not something I can claim to have,” the zebra said with a small laugh. “But yes, if a pony was quiet, this would be a simple task.”
“So they can sneak in and out of a house. Big whoop.” I sighed, leaning back in my seat. “They can’t really do anything to me. When I’m awake, I’m on guard and could snap their necks before they even cut one of my arteries. When I’m asleep, I’m in a safe location and would be woken up by any attempts to break in. This was a flub because I was being forced unconscious by the deterrent, not to mention already pretty badly hurt from that tree.”
“You know you’re not invincible, right?” False asked. “I thought past events proved that well.”
“Yeah, but I’m no weakling either. I thought past events proved that even better.” I stood up. “Are we done here?”
“You in a rush?”
I nodded. “I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but we’ve got some digging to do.”
“You were the one who wanted to hurry up and start digging, so hurry up and start digging!”
I groaned, hoisting the pickaxe over my shoulder from where I was previously holding it. “Look, you just gave me a Minecraft diamond pickaxe. I’m gonna be a little excited. Sorry if I want to take a second to look at it.”
Risk gave me a deadpanned stare. “You squealed like a seven-year-old filly and hugged it.”
“Really? I was aiming more for nine years old.” I shrugged. “Eh, can’t win ‘em all.” I turned to Nimble. “So this is around where they are?”
“I don’t know,” the colt replied. “But this is around where one of the tunnels I used to sneak around is.”
I nodded. “Well then, let’s hope they haven’t moved too far away. We’ve already screwed up one plan because of me getting sick, I don’t want another one to be ruined by forces beyond our control.”
I lifted the pickaxe into the air, hesitated for a moment, then took a deep breath and brought it down onto the ground a few times. After a few seconds of swinging, the space of dirt the tip came into contact with condensed itself into a tiny block that popped out, leaving a square space about half a cubic meter large in the ground.
“Don’t say it,” False warned me out of nowhere.
“Don’t say what?”
“One of those fifty million puns or references I saw going through your mind.”
I sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll stay quiet.”
I picked up the block that popped out and examined it. I tossed it into the hole I had made, and it expanded, filling the dirt up the exact way it had been before. I grinned.
“Very good. Very, very good. We’ll be in and out in no time and nobody will notice...aside from the dogs, of course.”
I struck the ground again. And again. And again. At a rather decent pace, I was digging a staircase down into the ground, with the rest of the Winter Solstice following closely behind. I almost expected ores to start appearing in the walls.
“Any clue how far down they might be, Nimble?” I called back as I dug.
“Maybe about...forty squares down?” he suggested. “Or whatever you call one space you dig?”
I paused and ran some math through my head. “...so about twenty meters underground.” I shrugged. “At least we’re not digging to the center of the earth for these guys.”
“That’s just where my tunnel is,” the ninja colt added. “I imagine the dogs would be deeper down.”
I sighed. “Scratch that. Something tells me we’ll be digging for a while.”
Memo to all Imperium ponies:
The target appears to have ignored the warning. Proceed with Operation Saddlebags at the earliest possible time. Do not get caught.
- Avian