Following the orcish scouts’ map, it only took a few hours for the party to get within visual range of the plateau suspected of harboring the ‘drake nest’. The route stuck to the cover of forested slopes and valleys, so the so-called drakes circling overhead were unable to spot their approach. They were also a good distance off, so unless the Adventurers managed to alert the camp and then waited several minutes before attacking, they wouldn’t be involved in any fight.
Once the party got to the limit of the easy cover, Applejack was able to sneak closer to take a look at what was actually waiting for them. The approach was a hundred feet of scree, difficult terrain to cross on foot, followed by a fifty foot ascent up a rough cliff. At first glance, the top held only trees and underbrush, but a closer look revealed a hidden fort – walls of netting disguised to look like an ordinary forest, with the ‘trees’ being a series of guard towers. Applejack saw no sign of occupants in any of the towers, although it was possible that they were simply hiding from her.
Applejack returned to the party to report. “I couldn’t really see through that wall they had up. It looked like I should’a been able to but it was better than it looked. Didn’t want to risk sneaking over the wall when I couldn’t even see the feather-lovin’ guards.”
“How are we going to get up there?” Rarity asked. “Air Elementals, again? That was a very rough ride, last time – if we’d run into serious opposition at the end of it we could have been in trouble.”
“Dire bats,” Fluttershy said, quietly. “I can summon giant bats to carry you up. They won’t be big enough to get Sergeant Macintosh though.”
“So bats for us, and an air elemental for him?” Twilight suggested. “It won’t be as bad as the chase – we don’t have to ride them nearly as far.”
“And when we get there?” Applejack asked.
“The wall doesn’t sound very sturdy…” Twilight said.
“It sounds flammable,” Pinkie Pie said, with a grin that faded into a pout. “And if it’s not I suppose Rarity knows Diamond Spray.”
“Or we could fly over the walls,” Rarity suggested, “and save the Diamond Spray for the enemies.”
“I’d rather face them piecemeal, if we can,” Twilight said. “We have a better shot at that coming in from the side.”
After a few minutes casting various defensive spells and summoning the bats and elementals, the assault began! By their own wings, or gripped in the claws of the massive bats, the party rose towards the plateau – except for Macintosh, who (alongside a second elemental whirlwind) was whisked to the top almost instantly, and dropped next to the wall. As they tore into it with their fierce winds, he thrust with his lance, hoping to snag it on enough of the debris lodged in the net to tear a section away. Between them, they tore a small hole in the wall, revealing the shadowed interior of the fort.
As Macintosh looked inside, he saw that the camouflaged fort had a roof made out of similar netting to the wall he’d just broken through, which meant that flying in was not an option. The only thing that looked like a gate was a wooden door set into the center of the ceiling – there was no apparent means of access for creatures who couldn’t fly. Which made sense, since there hadn’t been any road or path up the side of the cliff.
Unfortunately for Twilight’s plan to defeat the enemies in detail, the interior was open except for a rough circle of huts that looked like they were made out of sticks and leaves cemented together in some fashion. In the center, four harmless looking pegasi wielding huge blades strapped to their forelegs were talking to a nasty looking kobold, whose bandolier of flasks and pouches of reagents marked him as an alchemist, like Pinkie Pie. The pegasi stared back at Macintosh in surprise, then went blurry, as if they’d cast a magical spell to partially conceal their presence.
Rainbow Dash was the first of the main pack to arrive, and immediately headed for one of the disguised guard towers. Once she got close, she could easily spot the windows through which the guards would look, and once she was inside the guard hiding and spying on the party’s approach was quite obvious. She chirped loudly, slamming into one of his – hers? Its? It was some sort of pony-shaped bug – into one of its hind legs and spraining it badly. Green blood oozed from the cracks in its chitin.
The bug monster whirled and tried to gore Rainbow with the nasty, curved horn on its head, and when that failed, tried to bite her with its actually relatively normal looking fangs – but as a songbird, she was just too small and fast for it to catch.
The bugs in the other towers had better luck. Four of them were able to get an angle on the incoming flyers, and spat globs of green goo at them. Twilight’s bat was hit, but managed to keep its wings unstuck enough to flutter the rest of the way to the edge of the cliff and drop her off safely. Pinkie Pie was similarly partially gummed. The third bit of goo was aimed at Applejack, but went wide. The fourth hit Rarity’s bat dead on, and glued one of its wings to its side. The two of them spun around, out of control, slammed into the cliff and then plummeted to the base.
The towers that couldn’t focus on the flyers were still able to aim at Macintosh. He was glued in place by a green blob, and then pummeled by two bolts of force.
Twilight shouted, “In the name of the moon!” and charged past him at the creatures inside. Since the pegasi were so harmless, she ignored them as targets, and focused on the kobold, slamming her hammer into him. Up close, she could see that he was under the effect of his mutation, much like Pinkie Pie’s battle-pegasus form – his muscles bulged, and he merely grunted as he took her blow, then stepped closer and lashed out with claws and teeth. She blocked his jaws with her shield, and one claw with her shoulder guard, but the other drew blood.
“For the storm!” Pinkie Pie shouted, giggling, as she struggled to fly up to the plateau. She tossed a bomb into one of the guard towers, splashing it into the face of the bug that had spat at her, engulfing him in flame. And nasty green mist. And covering all the nearby surfaces in grease, for the hell of it. The material of the tower proved to be quite flammable, going up like a torch soaked in pitch.
Applejack flew up to help Rainbow Dash, surprising the bug which had just turned to face its attacker. She swooped up behind it and slit its throat, which gushed blood just as she would have expected from a mammal. It gave a wet cough and lifted a hoof to try to stop the bleeding, then collapsed.
Fluttershy’s air elementals moved to attack two of the guard towers not otherwise occupied, tearing off bits of the fake trees’ structure and battering the monsters inside. Fluttershy herself flew inside to support Twilight and Macintosh, saying a few words to give her companions the blessing of nature.
Big Mac grunted, and strained against the goo holding him to the floor, his muscles bulging under his bright red coat – and the goo could not hold him, although it slowed his charge as he shook the confounding magic out of his mind and charged at one of the ‘harmless’ pegasi. Despite the slowing effect, he was still able to build up quite a bit of momentum, and struck true despite the fuzziness, impaling the hapless mare.
Even pinned to the end of his lance, however, she wasn’t quite finished. She scraped herself off his lance, and before he could blink he found himself looking at four wounded pegasi, all grinning at him with a wicked glint in their eyes. The other pegasi likewise multiplied, gaining their own mirror images, then all four flew up to the ceiling net and stuck there, out of his reach.
Rainbow Dash flitted out of the now-empty tower, homing in on one that wasn’t engulfed in poisonous smoke or being harassed by an elemental. The bug inside wasn’t surprised to see someone fly in through the window, but did seem a bit taken aback as it saw that it was being attacked by a tiny bird. It wasn’t crippled by her strike, but it reacted just as the other one had, turning to attack her with horn and fang, and failed even more miserably to even get close to hitting her. This one managed to dodge Applejack’s sneak attack, however, as she followed the songbird to their next target.
There were flashes of green light from inside the whirlwinds, and the bug who’d been bombed and gassed dragged himself out of the cloud of doom and dropped to the ground inside the fort, coughing and wheezing. Twilight’s dire bat squeezed into the fort and tried to bite him, but he scuttled back just in time to avoid its fangs.
The three bugs in the back towers shot bolts of force at Twilight and Macintosh, striking glancing blows on him, and hitting her right in the face – but aside from a few scorch marks, she was able to blink away the effects and slam her hammer into the alchemist’s gut, staggering him back a few feet – but he was still standing, and looked angry more than anything. She could see some of his bruises slowly shrink before her eyes, as he regenerated from her blows.
He stepped a few feet further back, clumsily mixed a bomb from his bandolier, and almost fumbled it as he tossed it in Twilight’s direction – but she was no better at dodging than he was at throwing, and was engulfed in flaming liquid. Fortunately, he wasn’t the sort of alchemist to focus on his bombs, and a quickly fading fire was all there was. It still hurt more than his claw had.
“Drop!” Fluttershy shouted up at the wounded pegasus clinging to the ceiling, but she laughed and shook her head, then gave a loud shrieking cry. In response, four more of the bug creatures emerged from the huts and flew up to cling to the ceiling, flinging a barrage of bolts at Fluttershy, making her whine as they pummeled her side.
Macintosh charged at the only enemy he could reach, but while his lance made contact with the hulking mutant kobold, it was off-center and failed to seriously damage him.
Then the ‘pegasi’ on the roof opened up with their own green bolts, all of them focusing on Fluttershy, spinning her around, screaming in pain, as they pummeled her again and again… but while their rate of fire was much faster than the bugs’, the bolts were no stronger, and even after taking more than half a dozen hits, she was still conscious.
Rainbow Dash continued her duel with the bug in the tower, but despite a flurry of pecks only managed to connect once. That was more than it managed in return, of course, and focusing on Rainbow Dash let Applejack absolutely maul it, tearing off both wings before planting her dagger in the small of its back. “Next?” she asked, before taking it back in her teeth.
One of the bugs in a back tower spat entangling goo at Twilight, and managed to glue her to the floor, out of reach of her target, while the others pelted her with annoying green bolts. She drew the greatsword she kept as a backup weapon and scraped herself free, then advanced on the alchemist with murder in her eyes – but she’d lost intiative, and he was able to claw and bite her as she closed in.
It was no use, though – the furious unicorn smacked the mutant kobold’s feeble attacks aside with contemptuous ease. Macintosh tried to get behind him and stab him with his lance, but the alchemist’s thick hide turned the lance aside once more.
One of the back towers exploded in green mist and flames as Pinkie Pie finally managed to get an angle to throw a bomb at it, despite the green goo slowing her movement. Fluttershy took advantage of the momentary distraction to dart into one of the huts and heal herself.
Just then, the ground in the middle of the clearing shook and dirt sprayed, as Rarity emerged from the tunnel she’d been digging. Seeing that most of the enemies were clinging to the netting above, she sprayed a barrage of diamond shards straight up, shredding the netting and painfully pelting most of the enemies hanging out overhead. The wounded pegasus, already nearly dead from Macintosh’s earlier assault, cried out one last time before her images winked out and she fell, thumping to the ground as a sodden mass of shattered chitin and bright green blood.
One of the other pegasi clinging to the tattered ceiling shrieked again in the strange language, and the barrage of green bolts shifted its focus, aiming at the wizard. The massive barrage pummeled her again and again, leaving her cloak in tatters and huge rents in her undead flesh. Rarity blinked, and (half dazed) just said, “Ow.”
Applejack and Rainbow Dash, finally able to see what was going on inside the fort thanks to the holes in the ceiling, swooped in to help, attacking two of the bugs. Applejack’s fell to the floor, dead; Rainbow Dash’s looked tattered and worn, but managed to hold on for the moment.
The last two active tower bugs shot stinging bolts at Twilight, but failed to dissuade her from finally planting her hammer in the alchemist’s skull. As his brains oozed from the ruins of his shattered face, he shrunk and shriveled down to normal kobold size, his wounds no longer healing.
Then another tower exploded.
Macintosh threw a javelin at one of the ceiling pegasi, but the mass of blurry figures kept it from hitting anything. “What are we going to do about those flyers?”
Rarity limped over to the pair, and smiled. “Leave it to me, dears.” A cloud of dense mist surrounded them, shielding them from the rain of green death.
The bugs on the ceiling turned to fight Applejack and Rainbow Dash in melee, biting and stabbing with their horns, but didn’t manage to score any hits. The pegasi, however, dropped into the mist, not willing to give up the hunt for the juicy spellcasters. One ran right into Twilight, slashing at her with his leg-blade – the other two stumbled across Rarity, and she only grimaced as they cut her down.
Rainbow Dash dodged a blob of goo from the remaining tower (just before it too exploded), finished off the bug she’d been fighting, and then shifted a few feet to flank another with Applejack, pecking it in the back to get it to turn its attention away from the rogue. As always, Applejack took that opportunity to tear it into little bitty bits.
In the cloud, Macintosh found himself being stabbed by a bug that had escaped from one of the burning towers, which ducked neatly under his lance as he turned to hit.
Twilight, facing off against a mirror imaged, blurred pegasus, closed her eyes and swung her mace blindly in his general direction, and was rewarded with a solid crunch.
A hoof came out of the mist and touched her on her back, and she felt many of her wounds close. “I’m sorry I was hiding,” Fluttershy said. “I would have died.”
“It’s fine,” Twilight said, panting as she opened her eyes and stared back at her enemy, watching for its counterattack. “Don’t die.”
The pegasi who’d finished off Rarity closed in on the pair, one flanking Twilight with his friend while the other sliced at Fluttershy. Fluttershy escaped without harm – while no use against the green bolts, the barkskin spell and shield potion were quite effective against blades. Twilight, in a much worse position and attacked by two enemies, still managed to deflect most of their blows, but one struck true, opening another painful gash in her side.
Rainbow Dash finished off the last of the bugs who’d attacked her and Applejack, then turned to look for more targets – and saw two bugs whose towers had finally been destroyed by the whirlwinds, and were now flying free in midair. She flew over to the closest, and as it turned to look at her Applejack snuck up from below and gutted it. Sure enough, strange magical insects were unable to live without their intestines, and its corpse plummeted to the ground.
The other was busy taking pot-shots at Pinkie Pie, who responded with a bomb that engulfed it in green mist. “My bug bombs work outdoors, too! Eep!” A green bolt shot past her from the edge of the fort, as another singed escapee from a bombed tower joined the fray – just in time to get swept up in one of the whirlwinds, which swooped around searching for targets.
In the mist, Macintosh finally finished off the bug who’d tried to harass him, and moved in to support Twilight, who was flailing around blindly, without much success. Fluttershy stuck to her back and continued to heal her, although she was running low on powerful magic. A Cure Light Wounds spell was not enough to gain ground against the vicious slashing wounds inflicted on her friend.
Rainbow Dash and Applejack, hearing the sounds of battle and Twilight’s pained grunts, descended into the mist to see what they could do to help. “I’ll try to take down the images,” Applejack said, slashing at one only to draw blood as she hit the real pegasus by mistake. “Um… oops?” Rainbow Dash’s follow up attack did hit a figment, shattering it.
Twilight and Macintosh continued to fail to hit their targets. “Gah! Stop dodging!” Twilight shouted at her opponent, as her blind swings went wide again. “Statistically, you should be dead by now!”
Pinkie Pie descended from above, and tossed a bomb that exploded at Twilight’s feet, spraying fire over the mirror images and the pegasi, but somehow missing all of her friends. “These really work better when I can make them poison and trip everyone,” she grumbled.
“They’re flying, we’re not,” Twilight said, while Fluttershy channeled the last of her powerful magic into one last good healing spell on her.
Rainbow Dash stripped the last image from one of the pegasi, and gave him a painful peck on the nose, while Applejack slipped around behind him and clawed open his side. He gave an angry shriek as he collapsed, green flames engulfing him as he reverted to his true form.
Another pegasus, the one harassing Fluttershy, was badly gored by Sergeant Macintosh as he circled around and made a pass at both remaining enemies, and managed to land a hit on the second, through the mist and the blur and all of the images. Another splash of fire from Pinkie Pie finished her off.
Twilight’s wild flailing finally managed to connect with the third, and the pegasus was dead and turning back into a bug before he even hit the ground.
“Is that – is that all of them?” Twilight asked.
“I think so,” Applejack said. “Is everyone okay?”
“They got Rarity,” Twilight replied. “I hope she comes back as herself.”
“I’ll help her, if she needs it,” Fluttershy said. “I still have enough magic for that.”
“What were those things?” Macintosh asked.
Everypony else stared at him. “Changelings,” they said, almost in unison.
“They’re not native to this plane,” Twilight said. “What are they doing here?”
“We’re not native to this plane either,” Fluttershy said.
“We’re native enough now,” Applejack said. “And they didn’t come over with us.”
“A few did,” Pinkie Pie said, “but their descendants are practically ponies.”
“The doppelgangers?” Twilight asked. “These were a lot nastier than doppelgangers.”
“Everything in Faerie is nastier,” Fluttershy said. “That’s why we left. We were nothing but prey, there.”
“And what in the name of all things green and glittery was a kobold doing with ‘em?” Applejack asked.
There were a few enemies left alive, when the party emerged from the mist, but all were battered and some were nauseous, and they fell quickly to the party’s assault.
Once the camp was actually secure, a quick search of the kobold’s possessions and the huts provided a sort of answer to Applejack’s question – according to some documents written in Sylvan, the kobold was a liaison to the changeling swarm, which was harassing the pass at his request. He also had the only useful magical treasure from the entire camp, a Cloak of Resistance.
The changelings did have a supply of goo in their glands that Pinkie Pie thought she’d be able to turn into tanglefoot bags with a little work. Harvesting it would take time, however, and time was in short supply.
Firstly, the camp was on fire, and the fire was spreading. It was already getting a little hard to breathe, and flaming leaves and sticks had set alight several of the huts.
Second, the destruction of the camp had not gone unnoticed, and the two ‘flame drakes’ from the peak were nowhere to be seen – but presumably were heading for the camp to help their comrades as fast as their wings could carry them.
“Rarity’s down, Fluttershy’s out of magic, and most of us are hurt,” Twilight said. “I don’t think we want to wait and fight two more of these spellcasters, especially not ones that can apparently turn invisible. Rarity had the Glitterdust.”
“Chop off the heads and put them in a sack,” Pinkie Pie said. “That’s where the glands are, and the orcs’ll want to see the proof of what was here with their own eyes.”
“We should take the kobold too,” Fluttershy said. “Rarity will want something to eat when she wakes up.”