//------------------------------// // Terrible Butterflies // Story: Pathfinder Ponies // by terrycloth //------------------------------// “GRAAAARRRRR!” Twilight Sparkle smacked the flailing limb aside with her shield, as one of the reanimated guards attempted to drag Rarity closer. “I don’t think they kept their minds, Rarity!” Pinkie Pie said, throwing bits of meat at one of the other ghouls that was gnawing on the bars to the cell. “Now now,” Rarity replied, “let’s not jump to conclusions. They might just be confused and frightened. Dying is rather traumatic, after all.” “They’re undead,” Twilight said. “They’re immune to fear.” She lunged at the ghoul who kept trying to reach out and grab Rarity, but it didn’t even flinch. Instead, it took a swing at her, instead, scraping the claw-like protrusions on its hoof down the side of her armor. “And confusion.” “I think I understand their mindset a little bit better than you, dear,” Rarity replied. “I was being metaphorical. For the undead, fear is converted to hatred, and confusion to mindless aggression.” She nodded to Pinkie Pie’s efforts. “If they were acting rationally, wouldn’t they be accepting her offering of food?” “I’m not offering them food, I’m assaulting them with food!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, throwing a bit of meat right into her target’s eye. It responded by snarling, and chewing on the bars. “Regardless of the cause, if they’re unable to control themselves, we’ll be forced to destroy them,” Twilight replied. “They’re a threat to the town.” “I… I think I have an idea… maybe,” Fluttershy said. The others stopped to watch as she took out the Lesser Rod of Threnodic Spell they’d taken from Trixie. Gripping it tightly in her teeth like a bit, she turned and stared at the undead struggling at the bars, focusing on the one trying to get to Rarity. “Okay, you,” she said around the rod. “Think!” The ghoul snarled, and redoubled its efforts. “Think!” Fluttershy repeated, and the ghoul stepped back, blinking. “Quick! Get it some food!” Twilight said. Rainbow Dash blinked, and tossed one of the severed limbs they’d prepared to the ghoul, who looked at them blankly, then down at the offering… and started to eat, curling up and snarling around the meal. “Soo… sooo hungry…” it moaned. “Think!” Fluttershy commanded the ghoul that Pinkie had been pelting. It snarled and shook its head, then slurped one of the bits of meat that had stuck to its face into its mouth with a long, discolored tongue. “Moooore,” it moaned, and Rainbow Dash tossed it another one of the legs. The other two gouls sulked sullenly in the back of the cell, one of them clawing at its own ribcage, the other banging its head against the wall. “I’m sorry, the rod only works three times a day, and the first spell was resisted,” Fluttershy said, looking sadly at the remaining pair. “Don’t worry,” Rarity said, readying her magic. “I can take it from here.” Once calmed, and fed, the undead guards were able to regain enough of their minds to at least talk about their ordeal. None of them had seen their assailant, who’d struck them down instantly and silently from hiding. They also didn’t have much interest in continuing to guard the town. “We’ve done our duty,” one of them said. “We died for this doomed cause once. We don’t owe them anything.” “Ah, but you owe us,” Rarity replied. “And we could certainly use your help. We’ve been contracted to clear the mine, and the last creatures that we know for certain make their lair there are some very dangerous butterflies – that is, very dangerous to everypony who isn’t undead. To you four, they should pose no threat.” “And no gain, either,” one of the other guards grumbled. “I doubt bug meat is even worth eating.” “What about… revenge?” Applejack purred, while quietly cleaning her claws. “Accordin’ to Deep Bore, the Gloomwings are the bandits’ pets, and it was the bandit’s leader who did y’all in.” She looked up, her tail flicking lazily. “I bet they love those Gloomwings more than anything.” “It’d be like murdering those bastards’ puppies,” said the first ghoul, with the beginnings of a grin. “Yeah, okay. I’m in.” Before they could hunt for the butterflies, it was finally time to hold funeral services for the ghouls killed in the mine. No necromantic control was sufficient to return their minds to them, after so much time as mindless beasts, but Rarity’s taxidermy was enough to allow for open caskets, so long as no one disturbed the hay-filled funeral outfits where the bulk of the ghouls’ flesh should have been. Gem ponies didn’t usually use caskets in their funerals, but so long as their dead compatriots were consigned to the ground, they were willing to accept a slight variation in the normal ritual with only minor grumbling. Then the coffins were nailed shut, and buried under six feet of salt. Unless something dug them up, that would be enough to contain the undead that would inevitably re-raise, regardless of what they reanimated as. The funeral had been held at dawn, so once it was over, the gem ponies hurried inside to protect themselves from the butterflies that would soon return. “Don’t worry, girls,” Pinkie Pie said, as she helped Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack tie on their blindfolds. “Rarity says the butterflies aren’t very dangerous if you can’t see them.” “Ah’m not so dangerous myself if I can’t see ‘em,” Applejack grumbled. Rainbow Dash fidgeted as her sight was obscured. “And how come you three get to keep your vision?” “Because they won’t hurt us very much if they’re confused,” Twilight explained, again. “Somepony has to keep their eyes open, to tell us where to swing. They’re also our best trackers, in case the butterflies make a run for it.” “What about Macintosh?” Rainbow Dash asked. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy looked at the large pony, who stared back at them blankly. “I reckon I’d better cover my vision too, Miss Fluttershy,” he said. “Heh heh, sorry, I forgot he was there,” Pinkie Pie said. In addition to the blindfolds, the party had barkskin cast on them, and mage armor for Rarity and Rainbow Dash – without incorporeal undead to fight, which the Vampiric Mist was not, even if more remained, it was only useful for the two adventurers who didn’t wear armor. Pinkie Pie, in addition to using her ‘battle pegasus’ mutation, had finally figured out a new formula commonly known as ‘Lesser Restoration’, that let her cure the blood-draining effects of the Vampiric Mist. She administered it to everypony who needed it. Thus prepared, the ponies waited in ambush, standing… out in the open in the middle of the town square, right in front of the mine entrance? “We want them to see us,” Twilight said, as Applejack and Rainbow Dash reluctantly joined her and Macintosh. “If we look like easy prey, they’ll come down where we can hit them.” “’Like’ easy prey,” Applejack said, reaching for her blindfold, but putting her paw back down on the ground at the last second. “We’re the bait,” Twilight said cheerfully, standing proud and tall in her gleaming golden armor as the morning sun rose over the town walls. “Try and look tasty.” “Girrrrls,” whispered Pinkie Pie loudly enough for the four to hear her from her hiding place, forty feet away. “They’re coming!” “How many?” Applejack asked. “Um… lots?” Fortunately, the swarm wasn’t tightly packed enough to fall upon the party all at once. The first half dozen descended on the ponies acting as bait, their mandibles scraping uselessly off Macintosh and Twilight’s armor, but sinking painfully into Applejack’s flesh – without being able to see to dodge, she was a very easy target. The party members who weren’t blindfolded were ready to respond, Pinkie Pie tossing a bomb at the cluster while Rarity and Fluttershy cast spells, and the ghouls charged out to bite at the giant purple pests. Their charge was fairly ineffectual, although one did sink her fangs into a gloomwing’s leg. Inky ichor squirted across her face. “Nope nope nope!” Applejack squeaked, staggering as the insects’ pheromones weakened her, and the many painful bite wounds threatened to overwhelm her. She scrambled for a hiding place where the bugs couldn’t reach, getting a little bit of covering fire from one of Pinkie Pie’s bombs. The gloomwings either didn’t see her or didn’t care to follow, most of them staying to fight the ponies still standing in the open, inflicting a few scratches, while a pair headed for Pinkie Pie, who was able to dodge their attacks and resist the confusing patterns of their wings, at least for the moment. Then the second wave of the swarm dove to join the vanguard, tearing chunks out of Twilight and one of the ghouls. Twilight, Macintosh, and Rainbow Dash failed around wildly, but weren’t able to hit without seeing what they were swinging at. The ghouls had slightly better luck, scratching up two of the butterflies, one of which froze in place, paralyzed. Fluttershy inhaled the pheromones from the butterflies who’d flown to attack Pinkie Pie, and sank to the ground, too weak to fly under the weight of her armor. She managed to keep her wits, and started summoning a creature to help fight the enemies. Rarity, unaffected by the confusion or the poison, stepped forwards and incanted the spell she’d worked out overnight – a variant of fireball, only much more elegant. Shards of diamond-hard slivers shot forwards into the gloomwings menacing Pinkie Pie, tearing one of them to shreds and badly wounding the other, which Pinkie Pie finished off with an icy vial from her bandolier. The gloomwings continued their assault, savaging Twilight and taking down one of the gem pony ghouls. The last wave of the swarm dove in to join the attack, two of them breaking off to attack Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Pinkie managed to dodge, but Fluttershy shrieked as the fangs sank into her shoulder, and her spell was lost, the half-formed summoning portal dissolving in a shower of sparkles. “This isn’t working!” cried a bleeding Twilight Sparkle, as her hammer once again failed to find any targets. Macintosh and Rainbow Dash had similar luck. The ghouls fared a little better, paralyzing another of the gloomwings, but that left more than a dozen active, surrounding the beleaguered ponies and griffon. Fluttershy, too weak to fly over and heal anypony, and unwilling to try another long cast, tried to shoot a crossbow bolt at the butterfly menacing her, but her shot went wild. “What do we do?” “Glitterdust!” Rarity cried, spraying a cloud of green sparkles onto the chaotic melee surrounding the ponies in the center of the square. “If we can’t see, don’t let them see either! Pinkie Pie, use one of your gas clouds!” Pinkie Pie gibbered in confusion, and started gnawing on her own wing. Five of the gloomwings were blinded, and flew up in the air, out of reach of the wildly failing weapons from the blindfolded ponies. Another was paralyzed by the ghouls. The rest continued to claw and bite, slowly wearing down the party. “Glitterdust!” Rarity cried again, trying to blind the rest of the gloomwings, while Fluttershy continued to miss with her crossbow and Pinkie Pie continued to gibber, although since a butterfly was trying to bite her, she was swiping at it uselessly with her spiked horseshoes. Two more gloomwings, blinded by glitterdust, flew up into the air, and the previously blinded blutterflies flew into the mine, their glowing forms vanishing into the depths. There were still five attacking Twilight and company, along with the two on Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, but the tide had turned. Twilight finally squished one of the ones attacking Rainbow Dash with her hammer, and Fluttershy managed to bounce a crossbow bolt off the one attacking her, although it didn’t accomplish much. “I can’t take much more of this,” Rainbow Dash said, as a butterfly she couldn’t see bit her on the wing. She was bleeding from half a dozen similar wounds, and was unsteady on her claws. “Keep it up!” Rarity said. “We’re winning!” “Are you sure about that?” the rainbow-feathered griffon asked, whirling on the butterfly that bit her and smashing in its thorax, although it wasn’t out of the fight quite yet. Rarity laughed as she scraped her clawlike hoof along the side of the butterfly menacing Pinkie Pie, which obstinately refused to be paralyzed by her ghoulish magic. Pinkie Pie shook herself out of her daze long enough to throw a bomb into the melee, but her aim was way off, and the spray of random fire as it shattered on the ground splattered all three of her friends, as well as the butterflies. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!” “Can I get some healing, or something?” Rainbow Dash cried, dodging madly as the butterfly’s terrible claws and teeth sought to put an end to her resistance. She counterattacked, lunging forwards and sinking her beak into its neck, then shaking the hapless creature back and forth before spitting it to the ground and stomping on its corpse. “I’m sorry, I can’t move!” Fluttershy sobbed. “I’ll try to summon something… again…” “I can’t… hit… anything,” Twilight complained, as she swung her hammer around fruitlessly. “Am I even close? Am I aiming at the right general area?” “Yes! But try to aim a little higher?” Rarity suggested, as she managed to get another claw scrape on the Gloomwing that had turned away from Pinkie Pie and tried to bite her, this time paralyzing it. One of the other ghouls also managed to paralyze a gloomwing, leaving five in the fight. But another ghoul went down, and Fluttershy took a nasty bite – but this time, she didn’t lose her spell. A small air elemental appeared before her, and she mimed covering her eyes and twirling around, to tell it how to fight. Somehow, it got the idea, and spun around into a miniature dust devil, sweeping over the Gloomwings and sucking two of them into its vortex. “Awhaaara! Sweerie awhaaara!” Rarity said, and the air elemental seemed to understand, flying over towards her with its cargo in tow. Rarity smiled. “Dasha.” And then blasted it, its passengers, and the Gloomwing still harrying Fluttershy with another Diamond Spray. Somewhat to her disappointment, it failed to kill any of them. “I was expecting that to be a little more dramatic.” Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy failed to comment on the matter, instead gibbering insanely as the additional Gloomwings in close quarters with them overcame their resistance to the confusing patterns. Even in her confusion, however, Pinkie Pie had enough presence of mind to throw a bomb into the elemental, detonating it on one of the butterflies, turning it into a flaming torch, but killing the elemental in the process. With that, the remaining butterflies turned tail and fled into the mine. Rarity and the ghouls went around and made sure the half dozen paralyzed butterflies wouldn’t be getting back up. Given the all clear, Twilight and the others removed their blindfolds, and limped over to Fluttershy to be healed. Applejack returned a minute or so later, with a bunch of gem ponies with javelins and small two-pony cart-mounted ballistae. “I was, er, I went to get help,” she said, sheepishly. “It’s okay,” Twilight said, as the gem pony medics called on divine power to radiate healing over the group, Rarity and the surviving ghouls standing discreetly off to the side. “How many of them got away?” “Eight,” Fluttershy said, taking out her wand of inflict wounds to tend to the ghouls. “They flew into the mine. We’ll have to track them down.” “Don’t worry about your friends,” Rarity told the two ghouls who’d made it through the fight. “They’ll likely be good as new in the morning, and judging from a certain griffon we met several times on the road, it’s easier to keep your wits about you the second time.” “Oh, right,” one of them replied, giving her a confused look. “That’s good I guess. When can we get back to the killing?”