Three days later, the peaceful afternoon in Griffondorf was destroyed by a window-shattering explosion and thick, billowing clouds of black smoke rising into the air. Both originated from a single residence, 221 Obere Westen Allee, and the neighbors that were home wasted no time in moving to the street outside to see exactly what had knocked out all of their windows and disrupted their meager electric supply this time.
“Move!”
Griffons leapt aside as Alexios barreled past them, and stayed aside when they realized the Griffondorf’s courier was hot on his tail. As the two hurried towards the house in question, the front door opened, allowing an even greater volume of smoke to escape, and the little diamond dog puppy named Scruffy half-guided and half-dragged a coughing, choking Jacoby Flynn out after him, both of them wearing goggles and shirts that used to be white, and both covered in soot. Without wasting a moment, the minotaur hefted them both up and carried them out to the street. The pup was set down, and the griffon was laid down. Alexios knelt, and the courier alighted on the ground next to him. “Jake, say something!”
“Alex? Where are you? I can’t see!” Jacoby wailed, “I’m blind!”
Without wasting a moment, Scruffy pushed Jacoby’s ash and grim covered goggles up to his brow and off his eyes.
“Oh! Of course. Thank you, Scruffy.” Jacoby rewarded the pup with a pat on his head. Scruffy just smiled, glad to have been so helpful.
“Herr Flynn, what…” The courier struggled to find words for a moment, trying to wrap his head around the shattered glass and clouds of smoke that lay and rose in front of him. Was this what war looked like? “What did you do?”
“I have successfully invented a new type of grenade!” Jacoby replied enthusiastically as he stood up from the ground and dusted himself off, which really just served to spread more soot around. “Rather than relying on shrapnel to wound the enemy, it utilizes the principles I recently employed to counter the bizarre occurrences seen ‘round the Confederation to produce an unstable arcanic waveform and then spread it over a wide area, creating a disruptive pulse”- He raised his talons to indicate imaginary quotation marks around the word ‘pulse’- “Of energy that interferes with and terminates simple arcane fields, and completely collapses complex ones! It also seems to produce electric current, so more than a few lights may not be functioning anymore. I’m thinking I might call it an electroarcanic pulse.” With a clap of his talons, he looked to both Alexios and the courier for approval. “What do you think?”
For a moment, neither of them said anything. “So, you’ve invented a new type of grenade…” Alexios began.
The smile dropped from Jacoby’s face. “Neither of you?” he asked. He looked down to the soot-covered Scruffy, who only offered a shrug. Jacoby sighed heavily, disappointed in all of them. “It dispels magic, somewhat violently.”
“Ohhhh.”
“As it turns out, runewords do not react well when their fields collapse,” Jacoby finished, looking back towards his house. The iron numbers nailed over the front door that denoted his address suddenly shifted and leaned to the left. The number ‘1’ fell off entirely and clattered on the ground. “Further work on this particular device will be conducted outdoors, and far away from Griffondorf, at least until I can refine the enchantments to be less explosive.”
“Herr Flynn, shouldn't we, erm, be contacting the fire brigade?” one of the neighbors asked. It was only then that Jacoby realized that anygriff that had been home was out in the street, either preparing to panic or having just finished panicking. Several had even obtained buckets of water and were preparing to start fighting a fire, with or without the brigade.
“No, there’s no fire. The smoke is a side-effect of so many fields collapsing at the same time,” Jacoby answered, speaking a bit louder than usual to make sure he was heard by all present. “We won’t need the buckets, either, but it makes me proud to live here, knowing so many of my neighbors were ready to charge into potential danger to help me out, and I’m deeply sorry for all the property damage.”
“That’s fine!” another neighbor called out, “After the last time, the adjuster tricked us all into buying ‘Flynn Coverage’. We’ll see who’s laughing after today!” If nothing else, everygriff managed to laugh at that, and they began dispersing back to their homes to retrieve brooms and dust pans to start cleaning up.
“Even without the fire brigade, you should really let the Duchess know that everything’s fine,” Alexios cautioned, folding his arms across his chest and prompting a defeated sigh from Jacoby.
“Yes, I should, although I’m not exactly eager to get back inside,” he replied, “I don’t especially want to risk the smoke, although I don’t think it’s in any way poisonous. Not that I had to find out.” At that, he turned to the pup at his feet again, this time with a warm smile. “I suppose I have my trusty little assistant and his quick thinking to thank for that.” Scruffy smiled widely at both the praise and the pat on the head he received. Alexios rolled his eyes at the entire display, while the courier couldn’t help a small smile himself. “Still, a cloth over the face should keep out the worst of it. Luckily, my stationary isn’t anywhere near the epicenter."
“Oh, here,” the courier said as he plunged his talons into a pouch on the side of his satchel. A moment later, it came back out with an unsealed letter envelope that was promptly passed to Jacoby. “There’s a blank page inside. Give me another moment, and I’ll have a pen for you as well.”
Jacoby took the envelope- a new self-adhering type- and surely enough, there was a pre-folded sheet of blank paper inside. Turning the envelope over, he saw that it was not stamped, although he somehow doubted that the griffon in front of him did not have a supply immediately available. A moment later, a capped pen was passed over as well. “Fantastic.” Taking and uncapping the, Jacoby stopped; the pen terminated at a point like a pencil would, and there was no ink nib to be seen. “Erm, there seems to be a component missing.”
The courier shook his head with a sheepish smile. “No need for a nib. I confess I probably spent too many talons on it, but it’s a new type of pen the Dromedans have now. Holds ink internally, just like a fountain pen, but it’ll write on almost anything, even leather!” He was perhaps a bit too excited at the end. “They call it a ball pen, I think.”
Jacoby marveled at the thing for a moment. “Well, I know what I want for my birthday. Erm, Alex, would you mind?”
Without missing a beat, the minotaur turned and presented his back, which Jacoby prompted turned into a writing surface, uncapping the pen with his beak and scratching out a note in only a couple seconds, before capping the pen and giving the paper a few shakes through the air to dry the ink. “Honestly, I’m a bit surprised you have all of this with you.”
“‘Be prepared’ is my motto,” the courier replied. Then, he ruffled the feathers on the back of his head. “Or, well, it’s my cousin’s motto. She was a filly scout, you see….”
The expressions on the faces of the other three creatures showed that they didn’t see. “The, Filly Scouts of Equestria? I probably should have mentioned she lives in Equestria. Or that she never actually seems prepared for very much, even if she was the best in her troop. Not sure what went wrong, exactly….”
“Well, here’s the letter,” Jacoby said quickly, before the courier had a chance to continue speaking. He made short work of folding the paper, placing it back in the envelope and giving the lip a lick with his tongue before sealing it. Both letter and pen were returned. “That should do it.”
For his part, the courier accepted the offered items, looking a bit perplexed. “That’s it?” he asked.
“Yes. Why?"
Suddenly feeling on the spot, the courier fidgeted. “It’s just, well, as an explanation for a window-shattering explosion goes, it seemed rather… short.”
Jacoby narrowed his eyes, just slightly. “What are you implying?” he asked.
“N-nothing! I, um, I’ll deliver it immediately!” Before anything else could happen, the courier stuffed the envelope into his satchel and took to the skies. Satisfied, Jacoby turned back to his house, smoke continuing to billow from the wrecked windows, even though it was considerably less thick than it had been just moments early.
“So, Alex, do you think that my insurance policy will cover this?” he asked hopefully. Inside the house, another, much smaller explosion sounded as a runeword from another experiment failed and its field collapsed.
“Jake, I don’t think any insurance policy covers ‘rampant stupidity’.”
In Griffondorf’s administration building, the Duchess sat in her office. In her talons, she held a letter from Jacoby Flynn, just delivered. The envelope that contained it provided no clues to its purpose, but she had a few guesses. Drawing one of her nails across the top, she split the parcel opened, and then withdrew the folded paper inside, unfolded it, and looked over the both disappointing and unsurprising contents.
Oops.
-Flynn
If asked later, the Duchess would have been unable to pinpoint the moment that she started shaking her head. “Flynn, du Idiot.”