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// Chapter 9: A Town on Crossed Roads 
// Story: Caverns & Cutie Marks 
// by TheColtTrio 
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	They had traveled in wary silence for a while after they got on the forest trail again. listening for the bandit or other dangers. Once sure they were at least relatively safe, conversation sprung up.
“If you don’t mind me asking, just what are you all? No offence, but you’re a, um...” Perfect Profit trailed off trying to find the right word.
“Motley crew?” Light Patch chimed in, “Rag tag bunch of heroes? Band of misfits?” 
Rarity snorted with indignity. “Please, I always fit in.”
“Like the time you tried to impress Trenderhoof?” Applejack said, a small smile on her lips.
A flash of horror flew across Rarity’s face, leaving Applejack and Light Patch to laugh. Perfect Profit gave a few chuckles too. “I think I’d have to pick a varied cast of adventurers. I mean, I know he’s a cleric, but what are you two?”
Applejack’s laughter died as the question sounded through her mind; mostly because it was a good one. She looked at her gear again pondering the question, “A’hm a Brawler-Wrangler.” It took her a couple seconds to realize that had been her. Brawler-Wrangler; she didn’t exactly know what having two classes entailed, but it did feel like it fit.
“How... apt.” Rarity said, glancing at Applejack. “I, myself, am a Manipulator.”
“And I’m not actually a cleric, I’m actually a Necro Botanist,” Light Patch chimed trying to keep the smile from his face as Rarity and Applejack glared at him. “Okay, okay I’m kidding I’m a cleric, although I may have to talk to the draconequus upstairs about a class change and OW!” he said after taking a swift hit from Applejack. “Allright, allright I get it, ‘Shut up Light Patch you're not helping.’”
Perfect Profit giggled for a few moments at the antics of the heroes in front of her. “I think rich assortment of varied characters would fit as well.” Light Patch opened up to chime in but a disapproving look from Rarity kept him quiet. “But how did you all end up traveling together?” she finished, looking at the group beside her.
Rarity quietly whispered to Applejack, “Until we see a reason to stop, we might as well play along with Discord’s little game.” Applejack nodded as Rarity turned to look at Perfect Profit. “Well, Applejack and I grew up in the same town. Some monster’s attacked it one day and we fought them off. After that, we just decided to pack up one day and adventure around together. As for Light Patch, well...”
“We pulled him outa’ a crater when he fell from the sky,” Applejack threw in. Perfect Profit raised and eyebrow as she glanced at the pegasus. He was too busy watching a butterfly flitting around his head to notice the look of the mares.
Rarity leaned close to Perfect Profit whispered, “The poor dear seemed to be rather shaken up and missing bits of his memory, so we decided we’d keep him around until he had his hooves on the ground a little more firmly,” she finished, glancing at the colt in question.
“Well, you three seem to make for a good team,” Perfect Profit said just as they exited the forest. “And here it is; the town of Roads Crossed,” she said, stopping a moment to wave a hoof towards the small town sitting before them.
Light looked away from the butterfly to take in the town. It was a little odd to be honest. From what he could see, it appeared to be bordered on two sides by the forest; as if the town used to be near it, but then started eating the forest as it grew. Even still, saying it was bordered by the forest was a bit generous. The forest was cleared away from the town a fair distance, the grassy clearing marred by a few stumps here and there.
They quickly and easily covered the distance between the forest’s edge and the town. “Well, thanks for the rescue and the escort. I’m gonna head over to the market district to get set up. And look me up before you leave if you can,” the mare said giving a quick wave to the group. “I don’t really trade in things that adventurers need, but what I do have I’ll give you a good price on what I do stock,” Perfect Profit called over her shoulder as she departed.
“So now what?” Light Patch asked, turning to look at the mares.
“Now we see if we can find some clues as to our friends where abouts,” Applejack responded, looking around.
“Right to the tavern.” Light Patch responded, striking another heroic pose.
“And going to the tavern would help how?” Rarity looked at the colt with an eyebrow raised.
“All good quests and adventuring parties start there. Trust me, I’m dangerously genre savvy.” Light Patch gained a slightly far away look and a stupid grin for a few moments before he cleared his throat and continued. “But besides that it’s a local gathering spot where people go to talk and exchange information and rumors. So chances are if your friends came through this town at any point and they look as,” he paused searching for a word, “interesting as we do. We’ll probably hear something about it in the tavern.” Applejack and Rarity looked at the grey pegasus, both looking as if they wished to contradict his idea for their own reasons. Reluctantly, Applejack spoke up.
“That actually sounds fairly reasonable. Unless you’ve got a better idea, Rarity?” Applejack turned to look at Rarity, who only shook her head. “Right, then it’s settled. We head to the tavern for any potential information on finding our friends.” All three nodded before picking a random street in the town and starting down it.
They had planned on finding some pony to ask for directions. What they found was a lack of ponies. Applejack turned to look at her compatriots “Ah don’t even know where we are now. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’d just found a ghost town or something.” Rarity hummed while Light Patch looked behind them. 
“I could probably lead us back to where we started and we could see if we can find Perfect Profit.” he began before pausing, his ears turning to face a sound he’d heard. “Wait I think I heard something.” he said aloud, his mind desperately trying to hold in the freakout from the ear thing. “I think there might be some ponies this way,” he said, turning down a near by street. Rarity and Applejack shared a shrug before following him, both of them having heard nothing.
A short distance down the street, the noise grew to easily audible levels. All three ponies shared a quick glance before taking off down the street. The noise quickly grew into the murmur of several voices. Eventually they emerged into a large trapezoid in what Light Patch figured was around the middle of the town. Buildings framed it, with a large more elaborate one creating the smallest side. The town’s ponies filled the park; some of them shouting at a pony standing on the balcony of what Light Patch figured was the mayor’s house. Others murmured to the ones standing next to them, and the rest simply stood listening.
“Well, we found them. But now what?” Applejack looked around, seeming unsure.
“It looks like some kind of town meeting,” Rarity chimed in. “I think the best thing we could do now is to simply listen in for a bit, and see if we can figure out what it’s about.” Rarity looked at the others in the group. After a quick nod from them both, she lead the way through the crowd towards the assumed front; using her highly trained gossip senses to try and pick out any important information from the chatter around her as they went.
“The bandits seem to getting bolder,” she heard one mare say. “I’ve heard they were bold enough to attack a troop supply caravan,” came another voice. “I’d heard they’d attacked a dragons lair,” proclaimed another with a rumor her gossip senses picked out as false. Honestly, she thought to herself, if they were gonna try to play that game, they could at least try to put some effort into it.
A pair of fairly haggard looking ponies caught her ears next. She tsked a little at their appearance, but their rumors kept her attention. “Did you hear about that one city way up north? They say it suffers almost constant raids,” one of the asked.
“The one up in the Majorialis mountain range?” The second one looked confused. “I thought I’d heard it was near constant Ursa attacks?”
An older stallion suddenly chimed in. “Thats nothing, I’ve heard there is some kind of succession war brewing-” Noise drowned out the rest of the older stallions words.
“Don’t you three think your time would be better spent focusing on the here and now?” a mare spat at the three stallions, and seizing up their little rumor mill. Ah, well, Rarity thought. It was just as well; she was just about out of hearing range anyway.
The small group emerged from the crowd again, only now at the front. They looked up at the balcony just as the mayor tried to regain control of the town gathering. “Ponies! Ponies, please we’re not gonna solve the bandit problem by yelling at each other!” he shouted, then waited a few seconds for it to quiet down enough for him to be heard. “We need ideas on what we could do, not rumors about what they might have attacked,” he finished, looking out amongst the crowd.
“What if we fight them off?” shouted a voice.
“With what? Good as the town guard is, it’s still small and even if all of us could train with weapons quickly enough, we lack the needed number to go around. Unless someponies are willing to go into battle, bravely wielding brooms?” the mayor snarked back.
“What if we hid the village?” suggested another voice.
“Hide it? Where?” the mayor asked. “In a hole? Or are you suggesting we paint the entire village to look like empty grassland with a crossroad in it?”
“Yeah, we paint it to look like a-” The sharp crack of the mayor’s head hitting the balcony railing interrupted the pony.
Applejack and Rarity exchanged a worried glance at the view of the mayor hitting his head on the railing.
“I have a plan.” Light Patch took a step forward. “What if we built a replica of the town some distance away and then rigged the whole town to blow up when the bandits are all inside of it.” Light Patch paused and looked around. “Wait, carp. That won’t work, where would we get the needed explosives? Maybe if we,” he began to mutter and sketch things into the dirt, occasionally cackling and grinning evilly.
The mayor stopped hitting his head on the balcony railing and looked up. “Traps! Those could work.” He looked up at the towns ponies. “We fill the town so full of traps it either stops them cold, or makes them consider the town not worth their effort. Okay everypony, get on home, look at what you’ve got around the house and start figuring out how to use it for traps. Then head over to the guards’ barracks; they’ll be leading the coordination efforts. Also, if any ponies have skills that could be useful to the effort, please report to the guard barracks,” the mayor said before turning around and leaving the balcony.
Applejack and Rarity looked at each other. “We should head over there,” Rarity said after a moment of hesitation. “Your skill with the ropes could be very useful to the efforts.”
“As could your attention to detail, Rarity. Don’t want to have a trap fail or go off early, after all,” Applejack finished with a nod. The two moved quickly to catch up to a pony in armor, as the town center emptied.
“Got it!” Light Shouted with triumph. “What if we,” the stallion looked around at the empty park. “Wait where did everypony go?” Still glancing around he managed to catch a glimpse of Rarity’s tail disappearing around a corner. He sprinted after the mares.