//------------------------------//
// 6. [14 pcs Prehistoric Animals] 
// Story: Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story 
// by Chatoyance 
//------------------------------//


Adrift Off 
Fiddler's Green


A     C o n v e r s i o n     B u r e a u     S t o r y
                                                              By Chatoyance






6. [14 pcs Prehistoric Animals]


“There once was an unknown company in Hong Kong that made a bag of weird animal-things that were then sold in what once were called dime stores or variety stores for like $.99. I know of four other very early monsters based on them. Gary and I talked about how hard it was to find monster figures, and how one day he came upon this bag of weird beasts…He nearly ran home, eager as a kid to get home and open his baseball cards. Then he proceeded to invent the carrion crawler, umber hulk, rust monster and purple worm, all based on those silly plastic figures. The one that I chose was known in the Greyhawk campaign as “the bullet” (for it’s shape) but had only amorphous stats and abilities, not being developed. Gary told me to take it home, study it, and decide what it was and what it could do.” - Tim Kask, play-tester for D&D, first editor of Dragon magazine, 1970.



"Shriekers? What's a shrieker?" Crimson whispered back, her muzzle to Frontpage's ear. They sat still, careful to neither move too much nor make any noise. The rows and rows of tall, stump-legged giant mushrooms filled the wide pathway. Only occasionally did one shift itself, or tip its massive cap to find a better balance.

"They're a semi-sentient fungus. Not intelligent, just aware of their surroundings." Frontpage stared at the monstrous mushrooms. The word 'impossible' kept circling through his stunned mind. "They're harmless. They mostly stand still, occasionally they shamble about absorbing whatever rot and decay they can find on the ground." It was impossible. There absolutely could not be Shriekers on a path in Equestria. It simply couldn't be.

"If they're harmless, why are we whispering?" Crimson started to stand up, from where they both had been sitting on the ground. Frontpage reached out a foreleg and stopped her. She sank back, slowly, and settled in beside him.

Frontpage put his muzzle to her ear. "Shriekers are harmless by themselves. But they are never by themselves. They have friends. Nasty friends. Very nasty friends." He thought for a moment and then spoke in a more normal, though still low, voice. "I don't think they can hear. No, I'm sure they can't. They didn't react when we first arrived, and we were yapping up a storm. I think we don't have to whisper, but... still, keep your voice down. And don't make any sudden moves. Also, just stay still for a while. I need to work this out. It's impossible."

Crimson did not enjoy looking at the eerie, gigantic mushrooms. Harmless or not, there was something terrifying about them. "You said they have friends. Nasty friends. How nasty? I assume you mean dangerous?"

"Very. As in rot your dying flesh from your steaming bones dangerous." Frontpage shook his head. Impossible!

Crimson shuddered. "That was a bit graphic, mister Frontpage." She hazarded a glance at the Shrieker directly in front of her. It swayed slightly, even though there was no wind. "If this is so, why are we staying here? Shouldn't we leave? Go back, perhaps?"

"No, I wouldn't advise that." Frontpage turned his head and gestured with his nose at the path behind them. Beyond the bushes with the writhing lightning snakes, more of the tall mushroom entities were slowly, ever so slowly, shuffling to fill the path. They were gradually pushing their way through the vines and shrubs that walled the dirt roadway.

"We're being surrounded!" A hint of panic was in Crimson's voice.

"No, no. They can't plan or think. They don't even have instinct. They're blind and deaf and just stumble about attracted by anything that seems like food. They react to vibration, and touch. So don't touch them. And don't pound the ground or anything. They probably sensed our hooves, or smelled us sweating." Frontpage checked to make sure the Shriekers to the front were not pressing closer. They weren't. "Not smelled. They don't have noses. Sensed. Chemically, somehow."

Crimson instinctively pressed close to Frontpage. "What do we do, Frontpage? Lay here until they go away?"

"We can try. For a while. Let's see what they do." Frontpage carefully opened one of his saddlebags and brought out his canteen. Crimson held the base of it so that he could remove the cap. It was a natural thing, ponies just always assisted each other. Frontpage took a sip of water, and nodded for Crimson to do the same. "Normally, Shriekers are found underground. Dungeons, caves, subterranean empires. But sometimes you find them during wilderness adventures, usually accompanied by 2D6 Violet Fungi. Of course, it's all completely impossible."

Crimson goggled. "What?" She shook her head, her bright red mane rippling. "You have entirely lost me. Tudisix something or other? How do you know all of this? And what do you mean it's all 'impossible?'"

Frontpage sighed. "I guess were safe for the moment. Relatively safe." He took another swig of water. "You ever play D&D?"

"Dee-ann Dee? Is that a human name? As I told you, I did not get to meet very many people growing up."

Frontpage's ears flicked with annoyance. "Dungeons and Dragons? The game? Tabletop? All the dice?"

Crimson seemed insulted. "I do not defend my human parents, but they would never have allowed a child to engage in gambling, mister Frontpage!"

"Oh Colt." Frontpage stared at his hooves for a moment. "I guess you really were isolated as a child. Not even on the hypernet?" The look on Crimson's face suggested that her hypernet use had been strictly monitored. "Okay... there was this game - not a gambling game, a game children and adults play to have fun together - and it was called Dungeons and Dragons. It was about... dungeons... and... dragons. And all sorts of things. It was a game of imagination. Going on adventures, facing terrible dangers, surviving scary encounters and coming home with bags full of loot and treasure. Or saving villages and rescuing children and puppies. It was whatever you wanted it to be. 

"There were monsters in this game. Made-up monsters, that the players had to deal with. Not the players... their characters. They made up characters - like characters from a novel - that they pretended to be. It was a game of pretend, they'd use dice to determine what happened. The players would describe what their characters did, and the DM - the 'dungeon master', a kind of referee - would help them work out what happened. Who lived and who died, that sort of thing."

"And people played this... together?" Crimson seemed to have forgotten the giant mushrooms for the moment. "In the same room? It sounds like making up stories!"

"Yeah. It was. But the rules and the dice made it not just stories. You could never tell what might happen. The DM could throw anything at you, and you'd have to overcome it by working together. You might win, or you might fail. Maybe your entire party gets wiped out. You had to play smart, and be careful, just like real life."

Crimson's ears drooped. "That... that sounds... very enjoyable. Did a lot of people do this?"

"Naw. Not a lot. But some. It was fairly niche, even during it's heyday. But yeah, it was fun. A lot of fun. Which is why I played a lot of it."

"What does any of that have to do with us?" Crimson had returned her attention to the Shrieker in front of her. It had shuffled slightly, moving half a hoof closer before stopping.

"These things, these 'Shriekers'? They are from that game." Frontpage had expected her reaction. "Seriously. Right out of the Monster Manual. Come to life, here in Equestria. I'd recognize them anywhere. They can't be here, they're fictions. They never existed, they can't exist. Unless Luna likes D&D and created them or something..."

"Why Luna?"

Frontpage grinned. "She seems the more fun of the two. Celestia's like somepony's mom."

Crimson smiled at that. It was so true.

"But that doesn't make sense either. None of this makes sense. It's impossible. Just plain impossible." Frontpage began scanning the forest on either side of the path. Little could be seen, the foliage was dense and nearly as tall as the Shriekers.

"Perhaps these... things... only look like these 'Shriekers' of yours. Maybe they are just mushrooms... that walk. Or rather shuffle." Another of the monstrous fungi shifted slightly, reacting, perhaps, to the movement of the previous one.

"Maybe... but I don't think so." Frontpage squinted and stared at the nearest cap. "Too perfect. Too exact. I'm not buying it. I had a miniature or three of these guys. This is a Shrieker, right out of D&D, and it is here in Equestria, and it can't be. There's got to be an explanation." Frontpage took a last sip from the canteen, offered it to Crimson, and then together they capped it and he replaced it. "Equestria is copied from earth, somehow. You agree?"

"It... seems likely. Very likely. There are too many similarities to think otherwise."

"The princesses didn't do a perfect job, though. Our sun isn't a ball of nuclear fire, it's a disk on the dome of the sky. The stars aren't suns, they are little energy creatures, or so I hear. They crawl around up there. Our bodies - they're not very much like earth horses. Our joints move like humans - or apes - do, our heads are huge. Wings and horns and speech. Everything about Equestria is from earth, only represented imperfectly. Changed, altered. Earth wasn't copied so much as it served as inspiration. We're ponies as seen through the imagination of a wildly creative goddess, not a biologist."

"Your point?"

"Crimson - those Shriekers there? They are perfect. Right out of the book. To the finest detail. They aren't some interpretation of a Shrieker, these are the very same things I played with long, long ago. How'dya figure that, huh? How's that happen, here in the Everfree?"

Crimson thought, while alternately keeping an eye on the Shriekers behind and in front. "Perhaps Luna really does like this game you described?"

"Not buyin' it. Ever wonder why the Everfree is here? It's dangerous. It kills ponies. Why haven't the princesses, the almighty princesses, just gotten rid of it? Wiped it from the map of Equestria? They can't, that's why. Pegasai can't control the weather in here, unicorns don't always have their magic work right, earthponies get gobbled up like popcorn. The princesses are no different. Well, a little different, they're immortal, and nothing can hurt them here... but neither can they do anything about this place. They can't erase it. Their god-powers don't work right in here properly. They're stuck with the Everfree, and from what I've heard? They don't like that one bit."

The Shriekers had gradually become more and more restless. At first it was occasional shuffling about, watched carefully by Crimson and Frontpage. The most recent shift had set of a ripple of restlessness in the fungi. More and more they appeared nervous, shuffling slowly, in reaction to each other. Nervous... or expectant.

"Something's coming." Frontpage watched as two Shriekers blindly tried to avoid touching each other. Somehow they sensed proximity. Chemicals, maybe, or some other... mushroom... sense.

"Where? How do you know?" Crimson began searching the forest, and the sky.

"Something is disturbing them. They normally just stand still for the most part. In the books, at least. And remember I mentioned they have friends? That's how they get to eat. Oh! I haven't told you what they do!"

Crimson glared. "What do they do?" She almost hissed the words. This was the sort of information that would have been more useful that fussing over whether things were possible or not.

"They shriek."

"The Shriekers... shriek?"

"Yes. Loudly. From those... holes... on top. They call monsters to them, and the monsters leave them... compost... in return." Frontpage noted Crimson's reaction to the word 'compost'. She wasn't dumb.

"You said Violent Fungi or something?"

"Violet Fungi. That's usual, the two creatures are symbiotic. They help each other."

Crimson frowned. "I know what 'symbiotic' means!" Her voice had raised in volume, and with good reason, because the Shriekers were shifting about as a group, slowly, but it was clear that the lot of them were agitated. The soft, creaking, rustling sound as they shuffled was highly disturbing. Worse, the ringed orifices on their caps seemed to be contracting and relaxing, as though they were dry mouths trying to gum something sticky.

"Violet Fungi - they are big mushrooms too... only they move faster, and they have tentacles. Long tentacles. Don't let them whip you."

"I have no intention of letting anything, anywhere, ever, 'whip' me!" The Shriekers were gradually spreading out, and that meant less room on the pathway for Crimson and Frontpage. Some of the Shriekers had begun to work their way down the narrow area between the crawling lightning-snake bushes. The air seemed strange, heavy, and unpleasantly still.

"I get 'ominous' from this. Yeah. Definitely some 'ominous' going on. I love words. I don't always love what they mean, but I can't help but love words. Ya' kind of have to, to be a reporter." Frontpage smiled a thin smile. "Love those words. Ominous. Kind of a big, round, encompassing sort of word, very..."

"Pull yourself together, mister Frontpage!" Crimson's voice cut through any claims the specter of panic had upon the pony reporter. "I expect better of the Canterlot Querier's finest!"

"Finest, eh?" Crimson swallowed, and took control of himself. "I'll try to remember that."

"What is our course of action, Frontpage?" Her eyes were steady, but her ears were low. Both ponies carefully stood up, backing slightly away from the slowly advancing mushrooms.

"Roll for initiative?" Crimson did not get the joke, and even if she had, she would not have found it humorous. "Sword... spear... axe... how about a stick? Not quite a wand of Magic Missiles, but..." Frontpage bit at the end of a fallen tree branch that poked out of the thick bordering undergrowth. Once it was free, he lifted it high and then lowered it. He leaned it against himself. "Excalibur!"

"You intend to fight... the mushrooms?"

"I have a notion. If it becomes necessary. It's insane. You'll love it." 

The Shriekers were now actively milling about. They did not move quickly, turtles could likely outrace them, but with several dozens all active and restless, the scene was desperately unsettling. They all crawled on their stumpy little legs exactly the ways that mushrooms were never supposed to actually do, and the entire situation was just very, very wrong.

"They are getting too close, Frontpage." 

And they were, entirely too close, and getting closer yet. It was not intentional, they had no idea that two ponies stood upon the same path. The Shriekers simply responded to the presence of the Shriekers closest to them, and the effect spread out over the entire mass of the mobile mushrooms.

"Flan!" Frontpage watched as a Shrieker, third from the front nearest, right side, shambled towards a low-hanging branch. The branch curved over the path through the forest, and was low enough that there was no question it would intersect with the cap of the nervous mushroom. It was a slow-motion trainwreck, and there was nothing to be done about it but hope the random walk of the fungus moved it away from the branch.

"Crimson!" Frontpage was not worried about the volume of his voice. He reasoned volume was not going to be a concern soon, and in any case, the mushrooms were incapable of hearing. He nodded towards the branch and the Shrieker near it. "If they start shrieking, whatever is out there, making them excited, will likely rush in. Whatever it is will be bad. And something is going to happen. I mean, come on, it's only a matter of time." Frontpage tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. "You up for some radical insanity? You want to earn your Koo-Koo Gazette press pass, right?"

Crimson could not back up any further, lightning snakes and a Shrieker filling the narrower path behind had ended any hope of that. "Let's... Stop The Presses and Bury The Lede, mister Frontpage!" Crimson had decided to try to be 'plucky'. Plucky seemed like a good adjective for a news reporter endangered in the field.

"That's... weird. And... makes no sense. But good! Good and weird. I can roll with that." Frontpage watched, in horror, as the third-removed Shrieker brushed by the low-hanging branch. He saw the branch lightly, faintly graze one of the puffy sphincters on the cap of the mushroom. 

For a moment, everything seemed fine. Of course Shriekers would recognize the touch of a harmless branch from that of a living thing that might try to eat them!

Sadly, Shriekers had no brain to recognize anything with. They were just slow to react.

The sound was a thousand sirens made from obnoxious tea kettles. It was air-raids and children screaming and wolves howling and somehow Godzilla was in there too, that part of his voice that sounds all hollow and mournful. It was certainly as loud as a kaiju, if one had decided to press its massive, radioactive maw to the side of some poor pony's skull.

Crimson's mouth was moving as she put a hoof to her ear. Frontpage couldn't hear her voice, but he could guess what sorts of things she might be trying to say. For his part, he was swearing, essentially non-stop, in pastry.

Suddenly it was silent. Frontpage's ear's rang as he finished up "...Bundevara Bundt Cake Sambusac Tarte au Citron... um... sorry."

Crimson wasn't listening, partly because it was hard to hear now. "My sweet Celestia, I just..." Her rump, as she unconsciously backed up, pressed hard into the bumpy trunk of the Shrieker filling the narrower path behind. "...no."

Yes, actually, as the fungal klaxon trumpeted the discordant notes that comprised a favorite tune of the Everfree: The Monster Horror Happy Fun Time Dinner Bell Song. Accompanying it was the entire Moron Tabernacle Shrieker Choir, who brainlessly echoed the initiating mushroom. Frontpage somehow managed, in the midst of this, to speculate that Shriekers must be able to hear, if only each other. That fascinating insight helped exactly not at all. 

Crimson and Frontpage clung to each other, trying to be as small as possible in the middle of the path, and moved their mouths in futile competition against the shrill tones of Satan's Bottom Trumpet.

Silence again. Frontpage finished his second litany of flaky, tender obscenities and wiggled a hoof in his ear. Crimson shook her head, trying to get the agony out. As their hearing returned, a new sound had been added. Ropey whisking, as if a hundred long tails were beating the greenery.

Frontpage saw the first thin flash of reddish-purple. More followed, cracking and whacking at the underbrush all around. A flailing violet tendril bit at the trunk of a nearby tree. The bark exploded out at the impact, and left behind was the wet sheen of some slick substance. 

The newfoal pony reporter retreated deep into his pony soul, immersed for nearly a century in the culture and traditions of the capital city of an entire universe. For over ninety years, he had lived among native ponies and the princesses themselves, growing more native with every passing day. His horror-addled mind reached for a proper Equestrian bakery-pastry reaction to the arrival of the deadly poisonous, aggressively carnivorous army of tentacle-whipping Violet Fungi that promised nightmare suffering and a slow, tortuous death.

"Fuck."

"Eclair. Frothy Fuck Eclair." Crimson, apparently, had also been driven beyond all pony sensibilities into the deeply buried humanity within.

"I owe you a pastry." Frontpage snapped his head down and grabbed his stick. "THOLLOW NEEE!"

Crimson gaped, then galloped after, as Frontpage, brandishing his stick in his mouth, ran straight down the middle of the path. As he went, he chopped at the Shriekers with the branch, swinging it as if it were a wooden sword. His scream, as he ran, was quickly drowned out by a hellish cacophony of screeching mushrooms, not merely agitated, but now bruised and battered.

The shrieking miasma of sound made Crimson dizzy as she followed after the stick-wielding barbarian reporter. She had not a clue as to what this 'insane notion' could be that he was currently enacting, but she was game enough to whip at the towering, screaming mushrooms with her tail as she fled. She even gave out a few a good bucks with her hind legs as circumstances permitted.

The Shriekers seemed to panic, and tried, desperately, to move away from the bite of Frontpage's impromptu +12 Hackmaster of Wood. They stumbled over each other, tripping and falling to the ground, their stumpy legs writhing and clawing at the air. Crimson bucked one of the standing Shriekers hard enough to send it flying. Whatever sound it made as it impacted a squirming, flailing, deadly Violet Fungus was lost within the nightmare symphony in the key of Shriek that palpably vibrated the very soil itself.

The Violet Fungi, blind, not deaf, obviously, but clear on the direction where the fuss was going on, were rushing the forest path en masse. They were much faster and more mobile than their Shrieker friends. Because they were neither intelligent nor sighted, they turned out to be abusive friends - they whipped and snapped the Shriekers in their way, relentlessly.

The entire forest pathway had become a zipper, closing shut, the V chasing Crimson and Frontpage as they dashed through the standing army of Shriekers. The Swarming Violet Fungi crashed as a wave against each other - and the Shriekers - from both sides of the trail. Whipping and spinning, they fought to blindly hit and kill anything made of animal flesh.

Suddenly, Crimson found herself thrown through the air to land inside a large, surprisingly ordinary looking bush. Beside her was Frontpage, who wriggled and worked to free himself from the limbs and leaves of the plant. He had landed tail over teakettle, and had to struggle to get upright.

The air was thick and filled with particles of soil and dust and bits of forest floor. The ground rumbled and shook. Something had burst forth, right in the middle of the long rows of Shriekers and their swarming violet compatriots. Something gigantic, something underground, something armored, with teeth like daggers and tiny, hungry eyes.

"B-Bulette?" Frontpage sat in the bushes, mouth agape, his former incredulity turned to total and utter stupefaction. 

The monster was as large as an earthly rhinoceros, when they had existed... or perhaps even an elephant. The very top of it's horizontally conical body was easily twenty-seven hooves high, the length of the horror thirty-six at a minimum. Every part of it was armor plated, from the sharp, beak-like mouth that took up a third of its body, to the tower-shield plates that circled what passed for a neck. The back was entirely a massive spur of armor, the legs heavily protected, the claws like enormous scythes. It was a living Ogre Tank, impossibly strong and all but invulnerable, and it was very, very hungry.

The Bulette snapped up a number of Shriekers and Violet Fungi together with a single, impossibly quick snatch of it's cone-shaped jaws and flung them into the air. It snapped at them and crushed them in its Royal-carriage-sized mouth. As the dagger-teeth repeatedly chomped on the giant fungi, purple and green ichor ran from the Bulette's jaws, making mud of the ruptured ground.

The Bulette had been attracted by the vibrations and had altered course, swimming through the soil of the Everfree like a shark of the land. Rising up, it had begun its terrible feast, gobbling anything and everything that was not tree, or rock, or dirt. Bite after terrifying bite, the monstrous creature devoured both ranks of mobile fungi, none of whom had any hope of escaping the impossibly fast jaws.

Crimson and Frontpage huddled together, clinging to each other in shock, as the multitudes of nightmare mushrooms were torn and ripped and swallowed by the titanic beast.

They dared not run, they dared not move. It was clear that the Bulette was not slow, and though its eyes were tiny, they saw everything that attempted to flee, however desperately. The ponies' ears rang from the shrieks and growls of motile fungus and ravening mouth, and both Crimson and Frontpage shook in their helpless fear, and half wished to be gobbled themselves, just to end the horror once and for all.

Now there was only the sound of munching and swallowing. The last of the two platoons of fungal creatures was vanishing down the Bulette's vast gullet. The ground was a mud pit of colorful slime, fluids, and poison. The great animal chewed contentedly, it's tiny eyes half shut in simple, beastial pleasure. When at last, it was done, when the last of the two mushroom armies had been swallowed, the armored monster began looking about for dessert.

It had no nostrils, the beak-like jaws solid and unperforated save by eyes alone. Instead, the long tongue of the creature snaked within a tooth-lined cavern, tasting the air, sensing, seeking. Several times it wiggled in the direction of the stock-still, barely breathing ponies, before moving on.

Then, the wriggling tongue turned back, and froze in place, pointing at the bush where Crimson and Frontpage hid.

The mouth slowly closed, as the tongue withdrew. The beast's small eyes turned to stare at the ponies. Slowly, powerfully, the titanic creature began to turn it's massive body, lining up for what might well be a snapping charge.

Frontpage felt his bowels evacuate. He did not care. He had nothing left inside himself to care with.

An impossible cylinder of ribbed purple rose up, half shrouded by the dust in the air, behind the Bulette. The purple madness was so large that it made the living tank seem like a toy compared to it. As the long, snakelike mass rose up, entire trees fell away from it, smashing to the ground below.

The Bulette paddled its claws through the ground, spinning its bulk to face this challenge.

A Purple Worm, of uncommon size, had also been attracted - in this case by the vibrations of the Bulette moving through the soil.

The two monumentally large monsters squared off. The Purple worm irised open the foreward end of its long, lumpen mass, and the end was only darkness, and teeth in a ring, and death, and nothing else.

The Bulette bared it's own daggers, and prepared to strike.

Frontpage and Crimson did not wait to see which mind-destroying horror was the victor. They ran.

They ran and ran and ran until their unthinkably great earthpony stamina itself was taxed, and then ran even more. Lathered and panting, they collapsed within the dark and protective walls of a peak-arched cave. 

It took some unknown time for the two ponies to calm down. They clung to each other, staring blankly at nothing, but constantly on edge, alert for any movement, any sound. 

Eventually, after timeless fear had abated somewhat, Crimson noticed a hoofprint on the floor of the cave. It was large, very large. There was a trail of them, leading deeper into the cave. Beside them were other prints, incomprehensible. A paw, perhaps, a cloven hoof, a bipedal pattern...

Crimson turned her neck and looked deep into the cave. Light shone there, soft and gentle. A moonlike glow reflected off of great purple gems imbedded within the cave walls. 

Frontpage followed Crimson's gaze, and his mouth hung open.

It was the glowing, crystalline Tree Of Harmony, the oldest object in Equestria, the supposed center of the very universe itself.

And, in the manner of a door, it was open.