The swamp was teaming with insect, but strangely enough to Rec and his friends they had no interest in biting anyone there. Froggy Bottom Bog seemed aptly named, they couldn't go a few minutes without seeing or hearing a frog of some kind. As they passed through the swampland confusion was evident on the faces of all three of the visitors. Also something to note that Twilight and her friends all had flank pouches for their amulets, each was in colors that complimented them and had their cutie mark emblazoned on it.
“What's with the looks of being lost? It's just a swamp,” said Rainbow as she floated above and next to them.
“The last swamp we went to bugs were making meals of us,” said Mandi, “that's not counting the normal members of the crocodilian family that looked like they were wanting to make meals of us as we drifted by on our boat, I swear those caimans were giving me the stink eye.”
“How could it be that bad? Even the little bugs are nice when you take the time to talk to them,” said Fluttershy.
“I don't think discussing things with a female mosquito is going to do a whole lot of good,” said Rec, “seeing as in our world the males like to feed on plants while the females literally drink blood.”
“And they're not the only blood drinkers to worry about,” said Claudia, “there's also the blood sucking parasitic worms called leaches and and roughly twenty four percent of all bats world wide are members of the vampire family. That reminds me, I wonder how the pets mom and I share are doing.”
“You have pet vampire fruit bat at home?” Asked Applejack.
“One, all vampire bats in our world feed on blood and two the bat I have at home is indeed a fruit bat. She's a flying fox, they're so named for their fox-like appearance, he's not actually related to any foxes.”
“What's her name? Oh, bet she's cute,” said Fluttershy.
“Her name is Eclair, it means lightning.”
“That sounds pretty cool,” said Rainbow, “let me guess you named her that because she's fast.”
“Nope,” said Claudia.
“She has cool scar that looks like lightning?”
“She doesn't have any sort of scars or body art.”
“Her fur is lightning colored?”
“Not even close.”
“Then I give up.”
“We found her unattended while thunderstorm was rolling in when I was eight, and at the time I was really into making obscure references.”
“Seekers don't usually have house pets,” said Rec, “especially field operatives, we usually don't have the time we should to dedicate taking care of them. Claudia's fortunate enough to have a parent and hired help to assist in taking care of her animal companion.”
“Oh, I'd just love to see her,” said Fluttershy.
“Maybe you will,” said Rec, “you're all welcome to come with us when we figure out how to return home.”
“You said you arrived at the field near Ponyville,” said Twilight, “why not just return there and do what you did last time.”
“That would require Janusea,” said Mandi, “and the gate we used connects to a remote area of Ireland, our reasoning is that if one gate exists there might be more, we want to use the gate closed to the place we call home.”
“That and gateways between worlds have been known to be rather unstable, sometimes the gate one side can have geographically moved from its last known location. For all we know the gate we used could be under a mile of water, and last I checked humans don't the ability to breath underwater or survive at that kind of depth without special equipment.”
“Same holds true with ponies,” said Twilight.
“It's nice to come here without the hydra this time,” said Rarity.
“Oh boy,” said Mandi, “you used a tempting fate phrase, we try to avoid that kind of talk.”
“Why is that?” Inquired Twilight.
“We call them tempting fate phrases because after they're said things have a tendency to take turn for...” said Rec shortly before getting cut off by a set of four voiced screams that gave the impression of something very large. Looking about the nine noticed three hydras coming in from three different directions.
“I don't think I'm skilled enough in my alicorn magic to handle this,” said Twilight.
“Allow us,” said Mandi pulling out two amulets, one was an orange serpent shaped amulet with yellow highlights and an aqua gem where the should be and black amulet in the shape of serpent with jade highlights and a light green stone where the of the snake would be, “Strike in all directions, Omnihydra. Protect, Mucalin,” with that a five headed, serpent-like, dark yellow hydra with a pair of grasping forelegs appeared next to a seven headed orange snake with a white underbelly.
“Show your magic, Hydramasker,” said Rec holding up an amulet that had the appearance of a gray mask in the shape of an Aztec war mask with black highlights and the the blue gem being held in the mouth. Suddenly a four legged creature with a similar body design to that of a turtle or tortoise with no shell appeared with three long necks that ended in three differently designed masks for heads, the creature itself was colored brown and green with the heads having yellow highlights around and near the eyes, it's feet ended in five gray claws and it seemed to have green serpent like tail at its rear.
“Okay, Omnihydra and Mucalin will take the two on the right and front.”
“That means Masker gets the one the left. Alright, let's start things off with halt that thing's advance. A little ice should do the trick, go for it.” The creature called Hydramasker opened the mouth of its left most head and sent out a beam of magic that froze the oncoming hydra's feet to the ground, “now to send him the far side of the swamp.” The left most head closed its mouth and the central head opened its mouth and let a shadow magic pour out and surround the hydra before turning into a massive shadow disk all about it and pulling down slowly making it disappear.
Mucalin was taking attacks that were aimed at the ponies only for the hydras to have all their necks snatched by the heads of Omnihdra before being flung a great distance by being picked up by their legs by Omnihydra's forelegs. The match was over in a matter of minutes.
“I suggest we keep them active,” said Rec, “and also use them as transport to our destination... Masker seems fine with the plan.”
“Mucalin and Omni seem to like the idea as well,” said Mandi.
“So, who's riding with whom? I'm gonna ride Omnihdydra,” said Claudia.
“You could have shared the fact you had some hydras of your own,” said Twilight as she climbed onto the shadow head as Rec climbed onto the head that hadn't been used, and Rarity climbed onto the ice head.”
“No, offense to anyone, but,” said Mandi as she and Pinkie boarded Mucalin, “we weren't sure how any of you would take that bit of news, better to keep them a surprise while hoping they weren't needed than tell and be forced to show them in a location that could cause quite a bit of panic.”
“That actually makes sense,” said Fluttershy as Climbed onto one of Mucalin's heads.
“Yeah, but keeping something as awesome as these guys in reserve,” said Rainbow as she landed on one of Omnihydra's heads, “we had a right to know, and so do the princesses.”
“Ah'm surprised thay're so well trained,” said Applejack as she got on one of Mucalin's heads.
“Oh, this was fun to see,” said Pinkie, “and the one that has heads like masks could really do some fun stuff for parties.”
As the titans continued on the course for the cave in the bog Twilight asked, “What exactly is with the heads of this guy anyway.”
“My Hydramasker is female actually, or rather she prefers to play the part in terms of references and voice work. She's magic user, each of the heads holds a different kind of magic. One head holds ice magic, one holds fire magic and the third holds shadow magic. When she uses a particular kind of magic she has open her mouth to release the magic. I got her from a safe house after I was told they thought after careful analysis I was the best option for holding onto her. Mandi got Mucalin during one of our trips to Japan and she Omnihydra when we were on mission that involved following the route of a certain hero.”
“It was more of a self imposed mission,” said Mandi, “and to be honest I thought Omnihydra would bond with Claudia when we got a hold of his amulet.”
“Surprised us all when he bonded with Mandi,” said Claudia, “considering how aggressive he is.”
***************************
After another twenty minutes of riding the nine came up on their destination. “Well, there's the cave that we're sure was mentioned in the travel request at the school,” said Rec, “Masker, let us off and stand guard, we don't want something coming in and trapping us here while we look around.”
“Mucalin, Omnihyrda let us off here and do the same,” said Mandi.
“It's a little dark in here,” said Claudia when they came up closer to the entrance, “BoltFlare,” the orange sphere of light appeared next her and illuminated the cave, “let's get going.”
“Right,” said everyone else in unison. They made their way down the narrow cave entrance, Rec was scanning the hallway with his Mythichive, until they came to an intersection that split three ways.
“Okay, three groups of three,” said Twilight, “one of the more veteran seekers will be in each.”
“Alright,” said Rec, “Claudia, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash will take the left tunnel, be sure to map out the route as best you can in any way you can, mark the way the came whenever possible. Rarity, Applejack and Mandi will take the route the right, same note as what said about routes. Which means Twilight, Fluttershy and I will be taking middle route, I'll be mapping it all with my Mythichive. We'll meet back her in thirty minutes share what we've found.”
“Sounds good ta me,” said Applejack.
“Sure thing,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Seems efficient,” said Twilight.
“Let's get this show on the road,” said Claudia as she headed down her designated route.
“Works for me,” Mandi as she led her her group, “be careful everyone, we don't know what could be in here. BoltFlare”
“Catch you all later then,” said Rec as he and his group headed for their tunnel, “BoltFlare.”
******************************************************************
“It sounded cool checking out an unknown cave, now it feels boring,” said Rainbow Dash, “we've been going down this passage forever.”
“Don't be silly, Dashie,” said Pinkie, “It's only been three minutes and forty-two point six seconds since we started down the passageway.”
“Be quiet you two, I thought I just heard something,” said Claudia as she raised her talon up, she then reached into her pouch and pulled her Red Search and gently whispered, “look about, Red Searcher,” the titan appeared before her and she said, “could look ahead for anything potentially dangerous and report back what you find, I'm worried about what we might run into.”
Read Searcher just went, “Mweuh,” and was off.
“I don't like that flying eyeball,” said Rainbow, “he kind of gives me the creeps.”
“But he'd be so amazing for a Nightmare Night party,” said Pinkie.
“Girls, I said quiet,” Claudia growled at them.
“Oh, so now the great villain sent a flying eyeball monster to finish me off, I'll take you on, soon as I'm out of these bindings,” came a brash, snarky female voice with a hint of pride.
“We know that voice,” said Rainbow before getting up in the air as much as the tunnel allowed and shooting down the passageway at high speed.
“Who did we just hear?” Inquired Claudia as she and Pinkie continued down the route at more even pace.”
“That was just Daring Do,” said Pinkie in her usual voice, “wonder what she's doing hear.”
“I thought she was just character in a book,” said Claudia, “I skimmed the first chapters of one of the books during our time here, it's pretty good writing if you ask me, if it was a little heavy on the death trap scene. As far as I know there is no real Indiana Jones in my world.”
A few minutes later they found a pale yellow pegasus mare strapped to a stone slab by ropes and a slightly cut stalactite over her her that looked like any particularly loud noises could cause it to drop. “Help me out,” said Rainbow, “we need to save Daring Do.”
Claudia rolled her eyes and said, “Stand back, also this hurt a little, so don't scream or yell or make any death threats.”
“Sure thing,” said Daring.
Claudia silently commanded the BoltFlare sphere to lower onto the lower left rope and began burning it away, after that was done she moved onto the right and then moved the upper right before finishing with the upper left. As Daring rolled off the slab Claudia said, “Better now?”
“Yeah,” said Daring, “Rainbow what are you and your friend doing here? And who is this?”
“My friends sometimes call me Talon,” said Claudia, “that should do until we get the time for a more appropriate meeting, as the old saying goes 'there are eyes and ears everywhere', so I suggest we get a move on.”
“Soon as we take out that eyeball,” said Daring, pointing at Claudia's Searcher.
“His name's Red Searcher, and he's with me,” responded Claudia, “more detailed information later, head to meeting point now.”
“You brought more than one friends, I see,” said Daring as they made their way out of the chamber with the BoltFlare acting as guiding light and Red Searcher a bit further ahead of it.”
“Yup, we brought the whole band,” said Pinkie, “plus her and her two friends. Also, they have some hydras they command guarding the entrance, they can also act as transports if we want.”
“Mandi and Rec have control of those things, I don't have any say regarding them.”
“How did they get control of hydras?” Inquired Daring.
“The same way I have control of Red Searcher,” said Claudia, “let's keep moving.”
_________________________________________________________
While all that was going on Rarity, Mandi and Applejack were coming up on chamber of their own, “So, what do you think of my little contribution to amulet carrying? I think they're just fabulous,” said Rarity, “and maybe in a few months they'll be all the rage all across Equestria.”
“Fashion really isn't my thing, same holds true with teammates. Claudia might have some understanding of fashion, but just looking at her when she hears someone talking about it you can tell it's of very little interest to her. She's good at faking stuff at social gatherings, but then again it was skill she needed to acquire when you consider her family's standings.”
“Is this rally tha time ta even be talkin' abou' tha' sort o' thing,” replied Applejack.
“Oh, come now now, darlings,” said Rarity, “now that you're carrying functional accessories maybe you should start thinking about fashion.”
“I've been a seeker for the past six years,” said Mandi, “and not once have I thought about things in terms of fashion, I don't even entertain the idea of things in terms of fashion. I'm guardian first, and everything else second. Guardians aren't really all that fashion conscious, at least last time I checked.”
“That doesn't mean you can't be interested in fashion,” said Rarity, “have you ever worn an eloquent dress?”
“No, I've never been to those kinds of parties,” said Mandi.
“Really? We've been ta tha Grand Galloping Gala twice already, not usually mah kinda scene, but et's usually funner than Ah anticipate.”
“It's the kind of event you need to experience at least once in your life, darling,” said Rarity, “just be wary of self-important nobles, my first Gala had me spending time with one of those.”
“Historically speaking the upper class has been full of narcissists,” said Mandi, “my team's dealt with a few ourselves, they aren't fun to be around. Besides, fancy dances really aren't something that interest me.”
“Ah hear that,” said Applejack, but tha' sorta thing don't matter much ta Princess Celestia. An invite ta tha Gala from 'er is a bit more o' uh decree she wants ya there, or Ah've heard from some o' tha more regular types fer tha sorta thing.”
“Besides, darling, you're probably going to be part of a new branch of Equestria's government,” said Rarity, “the princesses would likely want to show off the ponies that made it possible.”
“I'm sure Princess Luna is still working on a proper name for the group,” said Mandi, “she probably wants to get it just right, after all she's going to be the one with the highest authority within it.”
After a few more minutes they came up on chamber that basically looked like a dead end. “Well, looks like we turn around now,” Applejack.
“Always question appearances,” said Mandi, “for they have tendency to decieve,” she reached into her pouch and pulled up her Red Searcher amulet, “Red Searcher,” the red flying eyeball like titan appeared before them, “we need you to find any potential incongruities.”
“Mwuh,” came the sound from the Red Searcher before departed from the group.
After disappearing for a few minutes it returned with what looked like a light gray amulet with black highlights in the shape of a hand grasping a blue gem. “Looks like your friend found an amulet,” said Rarity, “and one with a rather interesting design at that.”
“Let's go meet the rest of the crew,” said Mandi, “Searcher, you hold onto that for now.”
“Mwuh,” came the sound from Red Searcher as they headed back to the meeting place.
__________________________________________________________
While that was happening Rec, Twilight and Fluttershy were heading down their passageway. They came to a decently sized chamber that they all quickly recognized as not being entirely natural. Twilight was thenkful the BoltFlare illuminated the whole room, as was Fluttershy. The Three ponies stopped at the entrance to the chamber to asses how the room was at first glance.
“Well, looks like nothing scary so far,” said Fluttershy.
“Let's be sure,” said Twilight, smiling down at the amulet around her neck she said, “read the script, Akmen-Meo,” the cat-like titan appeared before her, “you think you can find any hidden traps, or writings in the room?” The titan gave her nod and entered the chamber proper.
“We're going to need a master of disarming if there are traps,” said Rec, holding up his Springer amulet he said, “trick the trap, Springer,” the little foxy squirrel titan appeared before them, “see what you can do searching the room, disarm any traps you find and see if you can have Akem-Meo help you with retrieval if you find something you can't quite carry that looks like it might be a good idea to bring to us.” Springer gave a quick nod and headed into the chamber proper as well.
The two titans returned carrying device similarly shaped to the Mythichive that had arcane looking tiles with a blue boarder after a few minutes, Rec's eyes practically popped out of his head when he saw it. “What is it? It looks important, and quite old,” said Twilight.
“It's a Cypherdex,” said Rec with a bit less of his usual composure, “but what is it doing in this world? It would suggest that someone that was tied to the Casterwill clan once visited this world. We're going to have go back with it and be very careful, chances are it has a much more refined security lock than I use for my unit. After we manage to transfer copies of the data it holds we can turn over to a team for analysis and hopefully after a few months of studying the device they can figure out how to duplicate it. Granted, the team will have to be able to keep a secret and and brought in on all the seeker stuff. In all likelihood the first of the units will go to the princesses filter down to high ranking members of the group established to deal with seeker related scenarios.”
“You said you'd try to help speed things along by seeing if you could copy some of the files in the production of the units your group uses to what you called a Cypherdex crystal,” said Twilight, “does that mean it store information on the crystals?”
“And more,” said Rec, “the units can't even operate if they don't the crystals.”
“We better tell the others all of this,” said Fluttershy.
“Right,” said Twilight as she took the device in her magic, “let's go.”
Akmen-Meo jumped onto Twilight's back and Springer scurried onto Rec's head. “Aw, they look so cute when they do that,” said Fluttershy.
*****************************************
Once they were all back at the meeting place the first thing they heard was surprised Daring Do saying, “Augh, there's another flying eyeball,” and a quick look at Twilight had her adding, “and a cat that is half a skeleton yet still managing to be alive.
“Um, Daring,” said Rarity, “why are you here?”
“Some weird magic invoked by Ahuizotl, next thing I know I'm in one of the chambers here well tied to a stone slab with massive pointy rock ready to from the ceiling into some of my vital organs. Where is here anyway?”
“Froggy Bottom Bog,” said Pinkie cheefully.
“And you didn't bother tell me sooner, why?” said Daring with irritation in her voice.
“You didn't bother to ask until now,” said Pinkie.
“Sorry I've been trying to figure out how the griffin can command that weird flying eyeball, and the glowing orange sphere, last I checked griffins don't have magic like either of those.”
“We'll explain that later,” said Mandi, “for now let's focus what we found. My team found this unusual amulet, we'll scan later. What did your team uncover Rec?”
“A new mystery with potential for a massive headache,” said Rec, Twilight floated out the Cypherdex from her bag, “evidently a seeker's been here before, and one from the oldest known faction at that.”
“Care to clue me in,” said Daring, “you share your info and I share mine, sound fair.”
“Alright, we're reading you in,” said Rec, to which Rainbow gave a hoof pump, “we're going to have put you in the report anyway. Claudia, Mandi and I are what are known as seekers,” while saying the names he gestured to each, “we use a type of magic derived from will rather than whatever you've been taught is the source of the magics you're familiar with. The magic we utilize allows us to invoke the creatures in the amulets we carry, we call them titans, and cast a variety of spells. The BoltFlare is one such spell, and the strange creatures you see with us are all titans. Rainbow and her friends have bonded with some titans and have recently awoken as seekers, we're doing our best to explain and show what that means.”
“Alright,” said Daring, “I'm sort of following you with this, can I examine that amulet?”
“Maybe later,” said Rec, “chances are it has titan inside, let's take a look.” Red Searcher dropped the amulet into Mandi's waiting hoof before returning its amulet, Claudia's did the same.
Rec took out his Mythichive opened it before Mandi held amulet over the device and the light played over amulet before the image of a creature that resembled Ahuizotl appeared and walked around as the device said, “Hoozoto, Attack: 2, Defense: 2, Size: Average, Special Abilities: Grows Stronger while holding items, Type: Meso-Titan Scout.”
Daring's jaw dropped and she quickly snatched the amulet away from Mandi, while saying, “This could confuse the jerk, I gotta find a way to utilize this guy on my adventures.”
As she said all that a blue aura quickly pulsed around the black maned pegasus mare, this caused Claudia to facepalm and say, “Rec, looks like you're going doing another introductory lecture.”
“Congratulations, Daring Do,” said Mandi in a snarky voice, “you just became a seeker, and Hoozoto is your first titan. My friend, the unicorn stallion over there, will be giving you the lesson and rundown on everything you just opened yourself up to. Although, based on what I've managed learn about your lifestyle, not much is going to change. Now, care to explain to us what it is that brought you here in a bit more detail? Also, you might want to wear your new accessory, what you do with your titans and how you do with them is ultimately up to you.”
“Well,” started Daring, “Ahuizotl and I came across this highly degraded text that said that there are seven animal figurines made out of seven precious materials. We could only make out three of them though. A wolf cast from gold, a fox cast in silver, and a bear carved from jade. There was one I partially made out that had a P, A, and L spaced so far from each other I couldn't make a proper guess on the material or what animal it was based on. Ahuizotl already has the wolf, I have the fox and we were fighting each other near the chamber of temple we both thought the bear might be in. The text said that when a all seven are in are together and all the conditions have been met they will bestow a great power on the one who assembled them, so now its a race to get all seven creatures. For security reasons I was going to split the seven up among several museums, collectors and keep one or two for myself as some special little trophies. I could care less about the supposed great power they could bestow me, I just want make Ahuizotl or any of his known associates are incapable of assembling all seven in one place.”
“We should get going,” said Mandi, “our Hydra's are parked outside, we'll ride them to the edge of the swamp, it sounds safer than just hoofing it through the place.”