//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 Prestigious Hunters 
// Story: Falconers and the Tomb of Aminus 
// by MadDonut 
//------------------------------//

	“My story,” Mace began. “Starts with my father's own story. When he was just a young colt he lived in a village that was currently protected by highly experienced Falconers. Now at this village was one of the few that could manufacture the metal Hycrome. Hycrome does not erode and is a very malleable, flexible metal which is ideal when it comes to making the Falconers crossbows like the one I use now.
“Now one day the village was attacked by a hideous beast that had no eyes but could see perfectly. No skin but was protected by white bone. It attacked every building and every pony without remorse, without recompense. Our Falconers put up a valiant fight but the monster was too swift, dodging, weaving like water around a rock or wind through a tree, and one by one falconer met a dismal fate but none too tragic as Varin himself.
My father had said he saw it with his own eyes as Varin, peganier and protector of the skies, tried to attack it from above. Though the monster was blind it still knew, the beast knowing he was coming from above, sharply snached him out of the air like a snake striking its prey, ripping his wings off fiendishly and crushing Varin’s lower body with its head against the side of a boulder.
It then dropped him down as arrows flew in from behind it. It left Varin to die in agony as it stocked off to make short work of the two remaining Falconers in an equally grueling fashion. After making short work of Goffiphry, the unicron, and Arishma, the earth pony, it then simply left without further conflict.
My dad had explained the sight to me. He had always said the first glimpse of the cruel bloodthirsty world of Carridian is forever the worst anypony will ever experience. He watched as Varin, this once great stallion who had lived a proud courageous life: A symbol of protection and safety for many ponies for many years, be reduced to nothing but a bloody pulp.
His comrades had died long before but he stayed alive for an hours after the fight, unable able to move, and unable to speak… Unable to die rightly Joel. He said how everypony who could bear the sight had said his eyes were wide open the whole time most likely, some had theorised, from the sheer utter pain alone induced to his lower self. Tears poured out of his face in a continuous stream. No pony could help him because he was essentially already dead but not just yet and not for some time to come.
The monster had destroyed some buildings but nothing too severe. The lose of those Falconers was a travesty but they could do nothing but continue on with their lives in hopes that a new team of Falconers equally equipped and adept would show up to protect them as now their side of the land of Noriphmy was wide open to attacks by bandits and this time I should remind was what most have said to be the golden age of banditry.
A few months had past and a new monster had come but it wasn’t a beast. This monster was Merick the bandit leader as prophesied so easily by most. He and his group of bandits raided the village for its precious Hycrome to fashion equally deadly weapons for their own devious insipid use. They slaughtered the villagers and burnt that defenceless mining village to the ground.
My dad had escaped by himself and watched as his friends and family were killed one by one, sword to flesh, and often times ear to ear.  He had never left the village prior and because of this he became lost in the wilderness. However as young as he was he didn’t give up. He survived 
During his first few days he had fashioned a double edge spear by taking a broken branch and rubbing it for hours against a rock with nothing but his mouth to hold it in place until both ends had been smoothed to a deadly tip. He hunted and killed rabbits and squirrels by sneaking up on them with silent movements and stabbing the with the spear he wielded with nothing but his teeth.
Weeks of hunting using a spear and his mouth made him the only earth pony to wield a bladed weapon better than any other non-unicorn could. 
He had found his way back to his village only to find that it had been overtaken by the bandits that had attacked it, fashioning camps and barracks from the few spared buildings of the raid befor.  They had started making their own Hycrome intent on replicate Falconer weaponry. Earthenier classed weaponry to be precise.
He sat in the woods and waited till night to infiltrate and liberate what was once his home. Using the skills he developed all those night of sneaking up on rabits was the same as what he did in that instance. On those unsuspecting guardsmen they poasted each night. 
In the dawn of the morning they found that the two who were on guard had disappeared without a word with scant a trace. When day turned to night they had doubled the amount of security only to find that in the morning there was none. No bodie, only blood. Pools of crimson liquid.
Thirty six bandits had been there but after five days, a mutiny and more disappearances the ten remaining bandits each slaughtered one another out of fear in the final hours of the sixth night till only two remained.
They stood at each end neither of them taking his eye off the other when the door suddenly opened. Peering through the threshold was a darkened small figure. It was him, the colt who had his village pillaged by honorless ponies.
One of the two immediately attacked him but my father, using his mouth, deflected the fixed sword with one end of his spear and drove the other end into the bandit's throat. He fell dead as suddenly and efficiently as the rest befor.
He then approached the last stalyon who was cornered with fright. Comanding him to fall dead he did so with grace falling upon his very own fixed weapon. There were thirty persons their first night but now only one remained and that was him, the lone survivor. An avenger. He had found his way back to another village where he told his story. They had known that the ponies of my father's village had been killed but they had not the horse power to liberate it themselves. 
As word got out that my father single hoffedly killed a bandit group with nothing but a wooden spear the nearest Falconer group took him in with his very concent, and started training him immediately. As the years passed by he became one of the greatest Falconers mind you. He trained a small group of individuals and taught them how to fight same the way he did. They did many missions and were tyrants in fighting bandits with great cruelty. Effective as they were they were forcefully disbanded by the council of Noriphmy effectively catching the eye of the king himself. Later on he became the leader of team Coehin and is to this day still a Falconer.
Now I had the honor of being born to this hero. When I was old enough to begin training he wasted no time. We would spend days just the two of us out in the woods. He taught me how to track monsters by bringing me back to places where he and team Coehin had previously killed a monster and we would trace its tracks as far back as we could to find a place of origin. A breeding ground for say. 
Although we never did, these tracking missions had honed my skills, and now just a single broken leaf is enuff to lead me for a mile.
Joel was listening intently and absorbing everything that Mace was saying, but he had one question. “Who was your mother? You never mentioned her.”
Mace looked off into the distance as he pondered the thought, “He never spoke of my mother but for as long as I can remember he has always been my father.”
Joel was about to follow up with another question when Igneous called back to them saying, “I hope you guys are done talking because we're here.”
“Well Mace,” Joel began. “I thought you were gonna take center stage for this one. How come your story isn’t as great as your dad's?” Joel asked. “He sounds more interesting than you.”
“Ha,” he muttered, “I have done some great things in the short amount of time I had to live, but my father had had far greater adventures.” The dirt turned to stone as they walked up the path leading them up to the nonexistent entrance. “What we all seek is a legacy to be remembered by. That is what I'm after and until then I'll walk in his stride.”
“I should probably get started on my own then,” Joel said. Looking around he couldn’t help but admire the wooden households with roofs made of thick heavy thatches sufficient for protecting the occupants from the elements. It reminded him of medieval movies he used to watch as a kid. There were more commoners walking about doing their thing whether it was shopping talking or some job joel couldn’t quite tell was. “So…” Joel began, “where is the famous team Coehin?”
Looked around Mace called out to Igneous saying, “you see them?”
“If any of us would its Kara,” he replied.
Walking to the center of the village in hopes of yielding better results also came up fruitless on this elusive team Coehen. “You think they're just late?” Joel asked still looking for some other armored horses other than them.
“They could be, but it's not like them,” Mace answered.
“If anything it's because they're killing some beast,” Igneous said.
“Two in one day?” Mace suggested. “Absurd.”
Gracefully landing close by Kara said, “I don’t see them. Perhaps there just late.”
“It's what we were thinking,” Joel said.
“Sadly you're mistaking,” said a new voice from down the street. They all turned to see a blood covered stalyon moderately armored and well equipped with two long swords secured to his either side. 
Kara looked at him with worriedly, “what do you mean? Where is my sister?”
He straightened himself although he looked exhausted and said, “nothing sinister I assure you Kara. Team Coehin won't be coming back to day as they were needed down south.”
“Hilliph,” Igneous announced. “Wa I didn’t know you still kept to team Coehin. I thought you would have graduated into your own.”
“Ah it wouldn’t be the same. It's good to see you all doing well.”
“I don't mean to be rude but are we allowed to know why, or is this business to be kept quiet,” Mace suggested.
“Classified, no doubt,” he answered. “but Kara, your sister sent me to give you this book.” His satchel opened and an old leather laced book floated its way out and in front of this pegasus. 
“Well a new book certainly isn’t new,” Mace joked.
“From what she told me this one is very important you see.” He walked it over to kara and she read the front cover. “Examine its literature will you?”
From her expression she understood the strange writing. She put her hoof over the top of it and said, “we should take this behind closed doors.”
They were now sitting in what these falconers called the falconer keep. Small and not as impressive as Joel would have thought but it did provide the essentials which he guess was good enough to begin with. This building however, unlike most, was made entirely of stone save it for  the flooring that was of wood intending to be more homey for say.
It was dimly lit almost no natural light and had a table and a few pieces of furniture and wardrobe off to the side. Joel didn’t even know why he needed to be there he only killed one monster and now he was a Falconer all of a sudden. Talk about a swift change in pacing. This new guy, Hilliph, already seemed like a great character and one who the others seemed to already know him very well. As everypony got settled and situated Mace asked, “So why are we gathered here today? I'm sure this is important.”
Hilliph stood across the table and said, “As you may have known Mace I and the rest of team Coehin recently had been working together to uncover more of our lost valley, finding abandoned strongholds deserted villages and wasted lands doing our duty to piece things back together recovering a lot of our past.” he laid the book down on the table, “most people think that we hunted monsters and recovered magic books for the historians in the capital to study and dissect.” Hilliph continued, “What most don't know is we actually are trying to uncover Hexer ruins. What little evidence to support their very existence.”
“Hexer ruins,” Mace asked, “Hexers were never a civilisation, they can't have had ruins.”
He nodded, “My point exactly.”
“So what makes this one so special?” Igneous asked as gathered near.
“From our archives we have gathered over the years we were led to believe that they did infact have some sort of hierarchy. What makes this book so special is that this all but confirms it.”
He opened it to a page with what looked like to be a map, “From what Nimbus was able to translate it apparently leads straight to where they had built a fortress.”
“Let me guess,” Mace began, “You want us to take you there and go spelunking for some Hexer magic?”
“We can only obtain stolen magic though,” Igneous said. “Raw magic comes straight from a majin. You can't preserve it.”
“It's the stolen Magic were after,” he said, “This particular stolen magic is the white Magic taken from Aminus himself.”	
“Aminus,” asked Joel. For some reason amidst all the exposition he decided that this one name amongst other things was question worthy.
“Yes,” he answered assuming he meant thee Aminus which he didn’t. “Aminus the colossal black dragon.”
‘welp…’
“A dragons stolen Magic?” Kara asked. “I thought it was destroyed when Aminus was imprisoned within the ground itself.” 
“You can’t destroy stolen magic. It takes a crystal form that cannot be broken.”
“Shouldn't we just leave it,” Mace sugested. “We could be endangering every pony with the most powerful white magic ever.”
“If we leave it there is a good chance a group called the Gekies Getuies might take it first. They had infiltrated our archives and from inside reports there are after this white magic as well. Their final intentions are not clear, but simply leaving it would be even more dangerous.”
For a second everyone was quite, “What's the plan then after we retrieved Aminus Stolen Magic?” asked Igneous.
Hilliph sighed, “I don't know, but we got orders from the capital to retrieve it and bring it back.”
“Were giving it to the people who couldn’t keep the bad guys out to begin with,” Joel inturupted.
Hilliph looking Joel up and down said, “who is this falconer.”
“Don't mind him,” Kara said.
“You know what,” Mace suddenly said. “It shouldn’t be hard. Monsters encounters are low for the time being and I'm not going to see it be stolen by some thieves.”
“I strongly agree,” Igneous said.
“What about Joel, he is not trained,” Kara said looking directly at him.
“Well… *gulp* that hurts,” Joel said.
“Untrained, pah, I can train him during the mission,” Said Mace sneakingly. “Leave no other behind or left out of a great adventure. Besides we got an extra standard issue Earthener suit hidden away in the wardrobe,” he said pointing to it. “Just for the situation.”
“Great, we leave tomorrow morning.” Igneous said.
“We should get are rest.” said Hilliph. “I need to wash this blood off me, who knew Retoritus blood dried so quickly.”