//------------------------------// // The Castle in the Forest // Story: Spike's Doom and/or Destiny // by terrycloth //------------------------------// “You stop!” said a giant orc, as they made their way through the forest towards Lord Orcus’ castle. “These guys again?” Spike asked, drawing his sword. “We knew it was going to happen,” Bon Bon said. “Like we planned it, on three.” “Stop talking! Stupid ponies talk too much!” said the orc, pointing his sword at them. “Battle pigs, attack!” “Three!” Bon Bon said hastily, looping her lasso around a tree branch and swinging herself up out of reach. Derpy summoned a layer of batter to help protect Spike, who used his fire breath to attack the giant black boars that rushed out of the undergrowth. Moondancer aimed carefully, and tossed a fire bomb at the orc, who’d hung back out of range. Once all the enemies were on fire, Bon Bon dropped out of the trees onto the orc’s back and buried her cleaver in the back of his neck. “Yowch!” she said, kicking off him as he toppled to the ground. “Hot hot hot!” She did a little dance to make sure her hooves didn’t catch fire. The pigs, half-blinded by the flames licking over them, charged in Spike’s general direction and were easily caught on his shield. His sword was sharp enough to penetrate their thick hide, but not long enough to take them down quickly. Lightning rained down on them at random as Moondancer kept taking Dark Eidous’ name in vain, and Derpy hovered to the sides and stabbed with her cutlass when she saw an opening. The big orc groaned, dropping his shield and rubbing at the back of his neck as he started to stand up. Bon Bon darted in and hacked at his ankles, and he toppled over again, flopping onto his back and nearly crushing her. He flailed at her, trying to grab hold, but she met his grasp with her cleaver again, cutting off his hand at the wrist. “Argh! Stupid pony! How I fight with no hand?” “You had two,” Bon Bon reminded him. He looked down at his other hand just as she chopped it off as well. “Now I think you just lie there and bleed to death, okay?” The orc didn’t think it was okay, apparently, since he immediately clubbed her with his stump. She cried out and stumbled back as blood splashed in her eyes. But by that point all the battle pigs were down, and the orc didn’t have a lot of fight left in him. They searched his pockets for golz while he lay there moaning, and were about to move on when they noticed Spike hanging back, staring at the dead pigs. “They smell really good,” Spike said, staring at them. “Do they smell really good to you girls?” “They’re dead burnt bodies,” Moondancer said. “So no, they smell terrible. Let’s get out of here before I vomit.” === Three orcs were sitting around a campfire, roasting a deer. One of them frowned. “Go away, ponies. Not hungry now.” Spike nodded. “Okay. We’ll just go away heading north, if that’s alright.” “No, you go south.” “Wrong,” Bon Bon said. “If you go north we eat you. We not hungry. So you not go north!” Moondancer drew out one of her firebombs. “Allow me to offer an alternative solution.” === And orc dropped out of the trees, her spear nearly impaling Spike, although his armor deflected it just enough. She kicked him onto his rear, and glowered at the rest of the party. “How you ponies get this far? Stupid ponies. You supposed to be eaten at forest edge!” “Sorry,” Moondancer said. “Wait – I’m not sorry. I meant to say ‘Dark Eidous’.” === Two orcs were standing by the rocky shore of a lake. “Okay, if I win, you search south part and I search north part, but if you win, I search north part and you search south part.” The other orc nodded, then frowned. “What if we tie?” “I don’t know. Maybe we play again?” “What do you do if both of you are killed by intruders?” Moondancer asked. The second orc laughed. “Then we play again for sure! Not fair if we both dead.” “We’ll just continue on our way then,” Spike said. “We wouldn’t want to ruin your game.” The first orc squinted at them. “Wait – you not orc!” Spike sighed. “So… it’s a fight then.” The orc shrugged. “Not have to fight. You let us eat you, not need fight.” Moondancer sighed. “Spike! Just breathe fire on them already?” === “They’re definitely getting easier,” Bon Bon said, as they looted the corpses of their latest victims. “And that must be the castle!” Derpy said, pointing to a small fort on an island in the middle of the lake. “It’s not very big,” Spike said. “Well, duh,” Derpy said. “It’s a monster castle, and monsters live in dungeons. So most of it is underground!” Spike frowned. “You’d think there’d at least be the ruins of the real castle.” “Is there a lake on the map?” Bon Bon asked. Moondancer unrolled it. “Sort of. It’s more of a bay?” She turned to the right. “If we circle around this way we should find a bridge.” They made their way along the path, which wound in and out of the forest, following the edge of the water. Eventually it led to a wide open grassy field, bordered on the north by a wooden palisade with a wide gateway with no sign of a gate. There, in front of the gap, was a giant floating crystal. “Hey cool!” Spike said, breaking into a jog. “Another save point!” The crystal started to glow as he approached, brightly enough that he had to cover his eyes… and when the light faded, a pair of orcs were standing in front of it. “Stupid ponies,” one of the orcs grumbled. “This not forest! We eat ponies in forest.” “Uh…” Spike said, gradually slowing to a halt. “Are those the same two we just fought?” “Great. The orcs have a save point,” Moondancer said, as the others caught up with Spike. “It’s only fair,” Derpy said. Moondancer gestured to the orcs, who were still arguing with each other, and hadn’t seemed to notice the party yet. “But doesn’t that make this completely pointless? If we kill them they’ll just come right back.” “I don’t see why it matters,” Bon Bon said. “It’s not like we were going to run out of orcs.” “I was hoping we might,” Moondancer said. “Genocide is the only cure for their abuse of the Equestrian language. “Look, it obviously takes some time for them to respawn. All we need to do is kill them, tag the crystal, and move on before they return.” Bon Bon motioned Spike forwards. “Go, breathe fire.” But before he could attack, both orcs turned to look at the party. “You want use crystal?” one of them asked. Spike paused. “Yes?” Both orcs grinned wide, and stepped aside, bowing and gesturing for him to proceed. Spike walked closer, keeping a close eye out for signs of an ambush as he passed between them, but they didn’t do anything except grin even wider as he lifted his claw towards the giant floating crystal. He pulled his claw back. “Um… maybe we shouldn’t use this one.” “We know it works,” Bon Bon said. “We just saw them using it.” “Maybe it turns us into orcs?” Derpy suggested. Bon Bon looked thoughtful. “Do you think it would? That could be a useful disguise.” She paused. “Assuming it eventually wore off.” “Okay, talk,” Spike said, pointing his sword at one of the orcs. “What’s the deal here?” “No deal,” said the orc, licking his lips. “You want come back to orc camp after orc eat you, orc not say no.” “Heh heh, we let you come back after we eat you again and again,” the other orc said. “Until you get tired of coming back. But crystal not care. It bring you back anyway.” Spike turned back to the party. “Yeaaah… I think we should skip it.” “It took us almost a week to walk here from River Town,” Bon Bon said. Spike gestured at the orcs. “But if we have to use it, they’re going to jump us as soon as we appear!” “And has that ever worked out well for them?” Bon Bon asked. “Just tag the stupid crystal.” The orcs chuckled as Spike turned back to the crystal, but he shut them out of his mind and touched it. The world went blue. When it came back, there was already an orcish blade swinging for his head. He desperately raised his shield to deflect it. Behind him, there was a meaty ‘thwack’ as Bon Bon sank her cleaver into the other orc’s back as he tried to backstab Spike, which didn’t entirely stop his blow, but kept it from being strong enough to do more than clang off the dragon’s armor. Spike turned and stabbed him in the gut, just as lightning crackled down from the sky and struck him – it stung a little, but the orc had the worst of it, collapsing to his knees, then keeling over in a pool of his own blood. “Are you guys getting weaker?” Spike asked, as the other orc screamed in rage and rained blow after blow down on his shield, ignoring the lightning periodically crackling over him, as Derpy and Bon Bon hacked at his sides. “I guess it makes sense to leave the loser orcs to guard the castle.” The orc groaned, and sat back on his butt, dropping his axe. “Hate fighting right after crystal. Stupid ponies.” As Moondancer brought her scythe blade under his neck, he swatted at it weakly but couldn’t budge it against her magic. “Stupid curse!” Moondancer slashed his throat, and his body slumped to the ground. “Come on,” Moondancer said, grabbing Bon Bon by the tail and dragging her away from the fallen orcs as she went to loot them. “We don’t have much time before they come back!” “Let them,” Bon Bon said, trying to get her hooves her herself so that she could at least walk. “Did you see how weak they were? I bet they’ll be even weaker next time.” Moondancer dropped her in the grass, a few dozen paces through the gate. “And so will we if we have to use the crystal. All they have to do is win once --” “How? How would that happen?” Bon Bon asked, picking herself up. “They might call for friends?” Spike suggested, looking around at the tents and campfires scattered around the part of the clearing past the wall, clustered around the bridge they’d been trying to find. “It looks like there’s a whole camp here.” The four of them stopped to look around. Bon Bon pointed. “Can we at least go open that treasure chest? And pick up the loose piles of golz sitting out in the open?” Moondancer considered them, then trotted towards the bridge. “Too risky. Who knows how many orcs are lurking around here?” “Do you see any orcs on guard? Because I don’t. They’re all asleep.” “In the middle of the day?” Spike asked. Bon Bon gave him a look. “It’s always the middle of the day.” But Moondancer wasn’t listening, and they had to run to catch up with her. She didn’t let them stop until they got to the far end of the bridge. The island was even smaller than it had looked from the shore – the only feature was a tower about as big as a garden shed, with a heavy set of double doors taking up most of one wall. A signpost nearby read, “No go in. That mean you!” “It doesn’t mean us, though,” Derpy said. “Right?” “It means us, but we’re not listening,” Moondancer said. Spike pushed open the door. “It probably means the orcs won’t follow us, at least.” Derpy tilted her head at the sign. “If this is Lord Orcus’ castle, why wouldn’t he let his own orcs inside?” “Maybe he can’t stand their grammar either,” Moondancer suggested.