//------------------------------//
// Assault on the Mine 
// Story: Pathfinder Ponies 
// by terrycloth 
//------------------------------//

After wrapping Rarity’s body in several layers of cloth, and securing it to Sergeant Macintosh, the party set out for the mine. They’d played with the idea of setting one of the fireworks to go off on a delayed fuse, to hopefully draw off the drakes and leave the mine less defended, but while Pinkie Pie was sure there was a way to improvise a slow fuse, nothing she tried worked. However, luck was on their side – when they were only a few minutes from the mine, they spotted a trio of drakes flying overhead, heading north up the gorge on patrol.

And then at last, they arrived. The mine was set in a natural cavern – the very top open to the sky, but most of it hidden beneath overhanging stone. The base of the cavern was a wide flat area, about a quarter of it flooded behind a dam feeding a large waterwheel, which provided power to a cluster of large buildings set by the lakeside. The mine entrance itself was near the buildings, connected to them by a set of tracks for mine carts. The path the ponies were following terminated there.

On the far side of the lake were a bunch of low, flat buildings – offices, residences, or possibly barracks.

Below the dam, the cavern looked unimproved and empty, although there was a wide underground entrance that, from what they’d seen of the map, probably led to the drake hangar.

There were dozens of diamond gnoll and zebra workers going into and out of the cave – the zebras mostly pulling mine carts or otherwise hauling supplies. None of them looked like warriors. That isn’t to say that there were no warriors present – half a dozen were clustered around the waterwheel, while a large, elaborately armored gnoll screamed at a harried engineer to fix whatever was gumming up the works.

Rainbow Dash laughed out loud, as she caught a glimpse of what was stuck in the water wheel. When the others looked at her in confusion, Applejack, who’d also recognized the white-and-purple mass, explained: “Good ol’ Sparky. Guess he washed downstream.”

“Oh!” Twilight said, then gave a nasty little smile. “Do you think we can afford to wait for him to reassemble?”

“How can we not?” Pinkie Pie asked, with a wide grin.

The party hid around the corner for about ten minutes – Pinkie Pie had spent a long time trying and failing to make a fuse, so the hour until Sparky’s resurrection was almost up – until the sound of screaming signaled them to attack. Fluttershy blessed the party, and Pinkie Pie – who’d already mutated herself into her sleek, monstrous battle-pegasus form – drank a potion that made her burp out a large bubble that wobbled into a shimmering shield floating near her.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash took to the air and glided silently towards the fight. A few of the miners saw them and pointed, but the warriors were distracted by the skeletal drake that clambered out of the waterwheel and proceeded to snap at them viciously – if ineffectively -- with its fangs. The gnolls’ response was similarly ineffective, spears doing little against bones.

Unfortunately for the party’s hope of a true surprise attack, the diamond gnoll foregnoll was not as distracted as his colleagues, and turned to see what the commotion was, spotting Macintosh and Twilight advancing along the ledge. “INTRUDERS!” he shouted as he turned to run towards them. “SOUND THE ALARM!” 

Fluttershy clung to the ledge, summoning, while Pinkie Pie soared towards the enemies, still out of range of her bombs, although she grabbed one in her teeth to be ready to throw. Spotting that, Applejack grinned at Rainbow. “Bullfightin’ time,” she said, tossing her dagger at the enemy – easily blocked, but it kept his attention while she landed.

Rainbow Dash set down a dozen feet in front of her. “Got it,” she said, tensing her muscles.

Half the gnoll warriors were archers, and turned to fire on the party – specifically, at Pinkie Pie, who was a huge flying target – but the warriors who were already getting chewed on continued to focus on Sparky. 

Sergeant Macintosh saw that, and asked, “Jump down the rest of the way?”

“In this armor?” Twilight asked, shaking her head. “Remember the goats.” Mac nodded, and the two of them ran to the end of the trail instead, panicking the miners in the area, who fled without putting a fight.

That meant that the foregnoll got to make the first charge. “RRrrrraaaaaaaargh!” he screamed, throwing himself into a fit of rage as he barreled at Rainbow Dash – who leapt to the side, just before he arrived. All he managed to catch was a face-full of exploding smoke bomb, enveloping him in a nasty-looking green cloud.

“Hi-ya!” screamed Pinkie Pie, charging at her own cloud and dispersing it with kick, revealing the foregnoll doubled over and vomiting. “He’s ready for you, girls!” she said, proudly.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash closed in and started kicking him while he was down, brutally pummeling him while he foamed at the mouth, too sick to fight back.

The archers spread out to avoid being caught together in Pinkie’s next bomb, and fired another volley at her. One arrow flew true, aimed straight at her face – only to bounce off her bubble-shield and spiral uselessly away while she stuck out her tongue. “Missed me!” 

Then Twilight and Macintosh charged them from the side. The sergeant managed to impale one on his lance, flicking the corpse to the side with a powerful shrug of his shoulders, sending it flying into the side of the watermill, but Twilight’s target ducked under her swing at the last second, living to fight for another few seconds at least. “Help us!” he cried to the warriors still engaged with the drake.

“Sound…” muttered the foregnoll, “Sound the Smooze-forsaken alarm, you morons!” he managed to croak, breaking away from his tormentors to stagger towards the mill himself. Rainbow Dash tried to snap his ankle with a vicious kick as he withdrew, but he was too tough to be slowed down that easily. They chased after him, lashing out with claws and dagger as he stumbled along.

Sparky continued to chew on one of the warriors, who was still clinging to life despite many lacerations and burns. Another of the warriors facing him screamed and stabbed at a tiny creature clinging to his face, prying it off but leaving him bleeding profusely. The third broke off and ran over to help out his boss, stabbing Applejack in the back.

While Twilight continued to swing at her archer, who continued to dodge her like some sort of smelly, fluffy butterfly, Pinkie Pie threw a bomb at the other remaining archer, enveloping him in a noxious cloud from which he did not emerge. That left Mac free to counter-charge the gnoll who’d skewered Applejack, only to leave the massive pony snorting in frustration as his lance was dodged as well.

The foregnoll wasn’t so lucky, and Rainbow and Applejack managed to drag him down before he could make the last few steps into the mill, where presumably some alarm could be raised – they then turned on the gnoll warrior who’d attacked them, moving to flank with Sergeant Macintosh. Another gnoll finally succumbed to his wounds under Sparky’s teeth, leaving only one warrior to face him.

That meant Twilight’s archer was the only gnoll left to raise the alarm. He tumbled and ducked out from under her threatening hammer, and darted for the mill like a rocket.

“Gotcha!” Pinkie Pie giggled, tossing a bomb for the darting gnoll – only to miss, and splatter the noxious fiery mess against the side of the building. “Or… not?” she said, chuckling nervously as the archer vanished inside.

The warrior who’d tried to assist the foregnoll, flanked by griffon and purrsian and pony – and with another stirge clinging to the side of his head, sucking his blood – plunged his spear into Applejack again, scoring another deep wound on the beleaguered kitty. It was his last act before Macintosh ran him through, and his dead body slumped to the ground.

“No no no no no!” Twilight cried, running for the mill. Pinkie Pie was close on her tail, but neither of them was fast enough to stop the archer inside from yanking on a large chain, setting off an ear-piercing wail as a large cylindrical device set among the mill’s gears started to spin. 

“AWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGA!”

It was time for round two.

After dispatching the archer, Twilight poked her head out the door, and hissed, “Everyone into the mill!”

Since it was right there, the party dragged the foreman’s body into the mill with them, and searched it for treasure. There was some coin, but the real score was his equipment – a magical cloak with the symbol of the zebra lands, a magical blue-metal breastplate as light as mithril, an enchanted flaming longspear also made out of the blue metal, and some non-magical but high quality javelins.

While Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy healed Applejack with their wands, and she in turn worked on disabling the alarm to keep it from deafening everypony, the others explored the interior, making sure there were no more enemies inside.

As it turned out, the workers had all fled into the mine when the party attacked, and any warriors who would have been stationed inside had been drawn out to deal with Sparky – who was still dueling with the last warrior, neither of them quite managing to finish the other off. The building was deserted.

That wasn’t to say it was empty. The watermill’s primary purpose was to operate a huge press, which squeezed all the water out of the blue mud and left a powdery substance, which was placed into molds and baked in a large kiln into instant masterwork quality weapons and armor, of which there were whole crates – far too much for the party to even carry, even with Sergeant Macintosh’s assistance. Unfortunately, a quick glance showed that none of the weapons were ones the party favored, and it was unlikely that they would have time to put on the armor before whoever the alarm summoned arrived.

“Let’s smash everything,” Twilight said. “If we can destroy the mill it’ll shut them down for weeks. We can sell this blue-metal equipment to raise Rarity, and then the Empire can send a real army to take this place down for good.”

“Will we have enough time before they figure out where we are?” Fluttershy asked. “Applejack’s healed – we should leave now. All we really needed was enough to bring Rarity back, right?”

“Yes, you should all leave, come out into the yard and play,” came a hypnotic voice through the window. Everypony except for Twilight Sparkle spotted the leucrotta peeking in at them – it was wearing barding, which made it much noisier than the standard model.

Twilight, oblivious to the source of the voice for just long enough to fall under its spell, headed for the window in a daze. Pinkie Pie was closer, and looked outside to see three archers perched up on the trail, while a trio of warriors and the leucrotta waited just outside. The window was already shattered from her previous bomb, so she tossed another out, catching them all in the cloud, before turning and spreading her wings to block the path. “No Twilight, bad Twilight. Ignore the dumb leucrotta whispers!”

The leucrotta apparently hadn’t succumbed to the smoke, because its voice swung around to lead Twilight towards the main entryway to the mill – and a thrown spear sailed back through the window and stabbed Pinkie Pie in the back. The gnolls hadn’t been taken out either!

“How the hay do we break her out of this?” Applejack asked, grabbing Twilight to hold her back.

“None of us know to break anypony out of this!” Fluttershy whimpered, as she fluttered over and healed Pinkie Pie. “She’ll only be free if she catches up to the leucrotta!”

“Then I guess we’re going out there,” Rainbow Dash said, taking her place near the massive double doors leading towards the mine. “Everypony be ready to charge when she opens the doors.”

“Charge who?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Whoever,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes. “We just need to distract them long enough for bossy-pants here to finish falling into the trap, and then she can make a real plan.”

So everypony got in place, and then Applejack let Twilight free to go open the doors. The hypnotized unicorn’s horn glowed pink, and the doors swung open to reveal the mouth of a massive flame drake, sitting in the yard waiting for them.

And then, there was fire.

But the party followed through on the plan anyway. They charged at the drake, and between Pinkie Pie’s frost flask, Rainbow Dash’s dragon-style kick, Macintosh’s lance charge, and a lucky shot from Fluttershy’s crossbow, the drake went down hard… but not before savaging Applejack as the rogue failed to dodge past its teeth, leaving her bleeding and unconscious.

As Twilight chased after the leucrotta, who laughed and dodged out of reach while the rogues peppered her with arrows, two gnoll warriors ran around the corner and stabbed at Macintosh, one of them getting in a solid blow. Pinkie Pie tossed a bomb past them, catching them in the smoke and splash to avoid hitting her ally, and one of them started coughing heavily as the fumes got to him. Rainbow Dash ran at the other, stunning him with a solid fist to the face, but making sure to stay out of the cloud herself.

The rider snapped out of her shock at seeing her beloved flame drake slain in an instant, and panicked. “They’re monsters! Fall back! Fall back to the mine!” The archers and the leucrotta obeyed, rushing past the barricade that the workers had thrown up in the entrance, which they slammed shut behind them, locking out Twilight, who tugged ineffectually on the door.

“Let me in! I have to play with my friends!” the purple unicorn said, grabbing at the wooden beams with her teeth.

Pinkie Pie kept up the bomb barrage on the nauseated warrior, while Macintosh and Rainbow Dash focused on the other – and on his friend, who came out from around the building to join the fun. Just as Rainbow Dash took down the first with a final kick to the groin, the other got another good hit in on Macintosh, and the giant pony collapsed in a heap, groaning and struggling in vain to stand.

But by that point, Fluttershy had healed Applejack enough for her to get back in the fight.

“Yeah, Applejack!” Rainbow Dash said, as she faced off with the last gnoll. “Come on, we can still win this!”

Applejack took a deep breath. “Or die tryin’,” she muttered, as she charged into the fray, scoring a deep slash along his stomach. The warrior towered over her, raising his spear, only to freeze in place as Fluttershy shouted, “Stop!”

Pinkie Pie had drifted almost on top of the gnoll she’d been bombarding and the cloud that engulfed him with her latest throw was right at her hooves. “Girls, step back!” she said. Rainbow and Applejack complied, and she pushed the cloud right over the other gnoll, catching him in the nasty smoke as well.

…except by this point, the first gnoll had built up a resistance, and the other knew to hold his breath. Both of them converged on Pinkie Pie, and skewered her with their spears like a roast on a spit. Her wings twitched, blood poured from her mouth, and she curled up into a ball as she fell to the ground.

Fluttershy squeaked, and – out of magic – aimed her crossbow at the more wounded of the two, thunking a bolt right into his throat. As he collapsed, Applejack and Rainbow Dash converged once more on the last target, Applejack nearly gutting him before catching a spear to the chest and going down again.

Rainbow Dash winced. “Just you and me, pal,” she said, and the two danced around each other for a while, dodging each other’s blows, until she finally got in the last hit she needed to finish him off. Meanwhile, Fluttershy – as the only other conscious and non-mind-controlled party member – flew around stabilizing the injured with her healing wand.

Rainbow Dash flew over to Twilight, who was still ineffectually tugging on the barricade with her hooves. “Twilight, what are you doing. Twilight, stop!” Rainbow dash tried in vain to pull her friend away from the barricade. “She ran off, you don’t need to follow her.”

“I don’t understand what you mean, Rainbow,” Twilight said cheerfully, her eyes still unfocused. “She’s right inside!”

“Twilight…” Rainbow Dash shook her head, and then punched the hypnotized unicorn in the face, knocking her unconscious. Her beak slowly spread into a grin. “Okay, I have to admit, I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”