Whelp, Better Late Than Never
An old mare finished sipping from a smoking broth and lowered the wooden mug from her wrinkled muzzle. She stared calmly across the torch-lit interior of the town's main hall. "I, Merigold, have governed the ponies of Amulek for over four decades. Not once did I ever dream that I'd be alive to see the twilight of our community. But, alas, with each passing day, this place collapses harder and harder. We've been refused access to our silver mines. Our trade routes are constantly attacked and set on fire. So many of our brothers and sisters have left, taking their families with them as they desperately seek new places to live. Soon, the town of Amulek will be a ghost of the glory it once was, scarred by this... heartless invader from the mountains."
Merigold stood up on aching limbs. Drakshaa and Keebroo leaned in to help her, but she gently patted their hooves and trotted across the wooden floor on her own. She passed dozens of families huddled all across the interior with their belongings, having taken shelter there for an untold number of days.
"We used to be the leading provider of silver ore in this part of the valley. For generations, the deposits found in our mines have supplied every community on this continent, ranging from the Alafreons in the west to the Val Roans in the east. Even the Lounge have made peace with us, trading innumerable goods for a taste of our earthen supplies. Over the years, we've developed an infallible reputation for ourselves and our work ethic. I must admit, this has shaped the ego we maintain today. It is a very sincere pride—but a stubborn one, and it has blinded us as of late."
At last, Merigold came to a stop before the guests squatting at the end of the hall.
"I wish I could properly convey my deepest regret over what we did to your ship... and almost to your crew as well." She gulped. "Each and every citizen in Amulek is a master craftspony. I assure you, with my word as this town's governer, we will have your vessel back in immaculate shape without forcing you to adhere to any price. Then, once you have everything patched up, we will send you on your way."
Rainbow Dash, Bellesmith, Pilate, and Roarke looked on from where they sat.
"That's... wonderfully nice of you to do," Belle said.
"But—if I may..." Rainbow Dash stood up. "About this dragon..."
"It's my fault," Booster spoke up, fidgeting. "I was too busy trying to calculate the trajectory of the javelins! I didn't even bother to think that we were dealing with something other than the dragon! I—"
"How could you?!" Drakshaa snarled. "Nopony's been dumb enough to fly through our skies since she began her rampage of destruction!"
Keebroo spoke up. "Drakshaa, they're clearly outsiders! How could they have known?"
"Who doesn't see the smoke rising from the mines every hour of every day?!"
"To be perfectly fair, this place is kind of wet and foggy," Rainbow Dash said.
"Huh?!" Darkshaa frowned her way. "What do you mean by that, winged freak?!"
"She means this town is a filthy mudhole," Roarke spat. Her lenses pistoned outward. "And I'll make you wipe your flank with that tongue right after I rip it out, you trotting pile of defecation—"
"Okaaaaaaaaaaaaay..." Rainbow pressed a hoof to Roarke's shoulder, silencing her. "Thanks for backing me up on the 'winged freak' thing, but rein it in some, girl."
Roarke exhaled through her nostrils. "I apologize." She gulped. "She and I are bonded now, you see—"
Rainbow's eyes bulged. "No need to announce it to the whole friggin' world," she hissed out the side of her muzzle.
Roarke tilted her head up. "Why not?"
Rainbow face-hoofed.
Belle grimaced awkwardly.
Pilate cleared his throat and smiled calmly towards the crowd. "We are... v-very much pleased that you have agreed to fix the damage caused to our ship, Ms. Merigold. However, we can't help but notice that you seem intent on getting us on our way... and swiftly." His metal brow furrowed. "Tell me, have things become that dire?"
"And I don't see how it's any of your business, striped one!" Drakshaa snarled.
"Drakshaa, child..." Merigold turned towards him with an aged glare. "You will be polite to our guests. They have suffered enough due to our negligence."
"I still say they had no business flying here!" Drakshaa folded his forelimbs as he sat on his haunches. "Harumph! Before all of this dragon business even started, we had total control of our airspace!"
"Things have evidently changed, Drakshaa," Booster said.
"I can't be the only pony ashamed of it!" He growled. "Look how far we've fallen! Now we're patching up foreign ships without seeing a single strip of payment out of it! I'm telling you, at this point, the Green Bandits will roll in and claim this place as our own! They'll turn it into a junkyard!"
"Not with a dragon flying around, they won't," Keebroo said. "Those goblins are too cowardly."
"And I don't see you rushing out to fight that creature on any of Booster's expeditions!"
Keebroo hung his head. "I... k-kinda sorta like living."
"And I like being proud of myself at the end of each day!" Drakshaa punched his hooves together. "Dammit, we need to call in support from the Val Roans! Let's ice this dragon once and for all!"
"That's proven to be rather difficult, Drakshaa," Booster said. "We can never seem to catch the thing."
"Yeah! All that your stupid gizmos are good for is snagging down friendly airships!"
"Stupid gizmos?!"
"Silence!" Merigold frowned. "All of you! This is not how ponies of Amulek should act!"
The stallions hung their heads, looking towards the floor. The nearby families shuddered and sat in silence.
With a sigh, Merigold turned towards Rainbow Dash. "Please forgive my citizens. We have all been driven to our wit's end." She gulped. "Drakshaa, most of all, though he has his reasons..."
"Hrmmmfff!" The stallion angerly stomped out into the wet, gray drizzle of the town outside.
"Yeah..." Rainbow nodded, then turned back towards the village's governer. "Just what slithered up his plot and died?"
"He was the overseer of our mining operation," Merigold explained. "Not a single pony died on his watch. Then, suddenly, there was a leak in the mineshaft."
Belle raised an eyebrow. "A leak?"
"To this day, we still don't know what happened," Booster explained. "But one of our stallions must have pierced his way into a pocket of natural gas or steam or something. Suddenly, the mineshaft started filling up with this dense, dense mist. Drakshaa, being the responsible—albeit meatheaded—pony that he is, evacuated the mines immediately. I was sent a week later to take samples of the steam and figure out what had contaminated the mines. But..." The blonde stallion gulped. "...that's when she attacked us."
"She came from the northern mountains," Keebroo nervously said. "It's almost as if she was attracted to the mists coming out of the mines. She attacked our expedition, destroyed our mining equipment, and completely wrecked the camps that we had put so much time and effort into setting up east of here."
"Our entire mining operation has been grinded to a hault," Merigold said. "At this point, it would take us months to get back on schedule. We've been so desperate to reclaim our mines, that we've built dozens if not hundreds of weapons to combat this creature."
"And yet, despite all of my technical know-how..." Booster sighed. "...nothing I build can take this creature down. She keeps eluding us, taunting us, making regular attacks and driving us stir crazy."
"By the Spark..." Pilate leaned forward. "Dare I ask... has there been any casualties?"
"Uhhhhhm..." Keebroo fidgeted.
Rainbow blinked. "'Uhhhhhm' what?"
"By a sheer miracle, all of us are still alive," Merigold said. She smiled slightly. "It would seem as though luck smiles upon us in some fashion after all."
"I've come really close to the dragon more than once," Keebroo said, shivering. "I've nearly been roasted alive, and yet I'm still here today."
"All things considered, I don't think the creature wants to devour any of us," Booster said. "However, that doesn't change the fact that it's laid claim to our mines and it won't let go. As long as it haunts those sites that once belonged to us, it continues to choke Amulek of what made us so prosperous over the last century!"
"But, it's really not something you should be so freaked out about," Keebroo said with a nervous smile. "Really, it's our bad for hitting your ship like you did. Once we get you patched up, it's best that you high-tail it out of here and don't look back."
"You can't be serious," Rainbow murmured.
"I'm afraid that we are, child," Merigold said. "Just look at us." She gestured towards the melancholic families gathered around. "We are without hope here. We are without a future. Until we finally slay that dragon—at who knows what cost—then we are helpless to salvage Amulek, and we are hardly appropriate hosts for innocent souls such as yourselvs." She swallowed a lump down her throat. "We're sorry that you ever got involved in the first place. I promise you that we will send you off on your way shortly."
"But... th-this is totally a big deal!" Rainbow's voice cracked. "If you don't get rid of this dragon somehow, you might lose the town and your way of life!"
"It's a fate we've all come to expect," Merigold remarked. "We still hold faith that the next expedition or two that Booster leads might bring an end to the creature."
"I've gotten so close to predicting its movements!" Booster passionately said. "If I can only give it another shot, I just know that Drakshaa and I can take the thing down!"
"Maybe what you need is some help in the right places!" Rainbow said.
Roarke bit her lip.
"Rainbow..." Belle murmured.
"That sounds most courageous, child," Amulek said. "But unless you inexplicably had some experience in slaying dragons—"
"As a matter of fact, I have!" Rainbow said.
Keebroo did a double-take. "You have?!"
Merigold's eyes narrowed. "How is such a thing possible?"
Rainbow opened her mouth to explain—
"Rainbow..." Belle tugged on her tail.
Rainbow sighed, raised her hooves to signal "time out," and turned towards her friends. "Belle, you know what this means, right?"
Belle whispered, "Rainbow, aren't you jumping the gun here, darling?"
"In what way?"
Pilate whispered, "This isn't Silvadel. Neither is this Xona. Your past aside, we're dealing with something that's completely out of my league."
"And what if it isn't out of my league?" Rainbow exclaimed in a hoarse voice. "What if this is the real deal?!"
"Rainbow..."
"What if this is Axan?!"
Belle grimaced. She glanced at Pilate.
In a quiet but firm voice, Pilate said, "It does not make any sense. Why would Axan fly ahead of us and plague an innocent group of ponies?"
"She's never expressed any need for silver before, has she?" Belle remarked.
"I don't understand it any more than you guys do!" Rainbow squeaked.
"Then why are you making rash conclusions about it?"
"Who's being rash?! Pilate, Belle, these guys are in a crazy situation, and if there's even the remote possibility that Axan is connected, then I owe it to them to—"
"You don't owe these ponies anything, Rainbow," Roarke said loudly, not bothering to whisper.
"Turn it down a notch, Roarke," Rainbow said, frowning. "You've already shoved your hoof in your mouth—"
"Rainbow, you cannot afford to throw yourself into something like this now!" Roarke snarled. "Neither can we afford to let you!"
Rainbow gawked at Roarke.
Eventually, Roarke caved, bowing her head as she shuddered. "I... I-I mean..." She sighed. "Your condition, Rainbow. It... it just isn't the right time, and—"
"I know where you're coming from, Roarke." Rainbow gulped. "But there's something I haven't told you guys... something I just figured out."
"And what's that, Rainbow?" Pilate asked.
"These ponies say that their mines are north of here," Rainbow said. "And that's where the dragon came from." She stared firmly at her friends. "Guess where I'm sensing this weird glowing symbol as we speak?"
Roarke looked up, her lenses retracting.
Belle's muzzle hung open. "Blessed Spark... do you mean—?"
Rainbow slowly nodded.
"But... but..." Belle grimaced. "I don't understand! Why is the symbol resonating from here?"
"I don't know," Rainbow said. "But maybe Axan does." She gulped. "Maybe this was her way of drawing me here..."
"And to what, Rainbow?" Pilate asked.
"...the fate of Austraeoh."
A cold hush fell through the group.
"Look, I may not have a lot of juice left in me," Rainbow said. "But this is totally a situation worth squeezing. If I fly past here, I fly past whatever's making me tick, and I'll never figure out this darn 'Yaerfaerda' thing."
"Maybe you're not supposed to, Rainbow," Roarke droned.
"Do you seriously believe that?"
Roarke grimaced. "I... I-I do not know what to believe."
"That makes the two of us, sister," Rainbow said. "But I'm not so cowardly that I won't bother trying."
"I never said you were."
"Then I'm glad to have you on my side." Rainbow Dash stood up boldly and stared at the villagers. "When's the next expedition heading out to the mines?"
Merigold turned towards Booster. "Mr. Spice...?"
"Erm..." Booster adjusted his goggles and said, "Tomorrow morning. Bright an early."
Rainbow nodded with a devilish smirk. "You've got yourself a new dragon hunter."
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Roarke is the group's new Klingon.
The next few chapters of Alma (10-12) are some of my favorites ever. Mostly 12
15 chapters left. Here comes the Hellfire.
"dense, dense mist."
WELL THAT DOESN'T REMIND ANYONE OF THE FIRST BOOK AT ALL.
Aww, so sweet, seeing Roarke so protective of RD. Though she needs to rein it in, like, a lot.
Okay, Roarkie. Your straightforwardness is adorable.
Well....
If it is Axan,maybe we'll finally see her end,
Time to hunt a dragon! Rainbow makes a pretty good point about Axan drawing her here, but I don't think she is right.
Heh, whelp. Because dragons. Fun.
Windthrow Part 2?
The mining overseer being the arrogant one who questions the leader??
Mysterious fog and mist coming from the mines?
Merigold better not have blue eyes.
Isn't it cute how she defends Rainbow?
I think it's fairly obvious that the dragon isn't the bad guy here. It's stuck to nonlethal tactics and has only attacked the mining equipment. They probably breached into something (probably the machine world) and now the dragon is trying to keep them the hell away from it. Either there's something nasty sealed down in this section or the dragon just really doesn't want a bunch of miners poking around down there.
Not sure why it hasn't just come down itself and said "Hey, it's not in your guy's best interest to be messing with this.". Maybe it figures that they're the type to go poke it with a stick if he tells them not to?
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Or maybe the dragon is axan and that's just how she rolls.
It sounds like axan, though I'm not sure if the timeframes actually line up. No mention of when all this stated, as far as I can tell.
Insulting Rainbow is a great way to get yourself killed by Roarke, Draksaa. Remember this and you might just survive this arc
Yeah, something is fishy here. Why would the dragon attack, but not kill? Surely, killing the citizens of this town would be simple enough. Perhaps this does have something to do with the Machine World (which, in turn, might mean another lavender flame will pop up, buying Rainbow more time). Furthermore, even if this dragon isn't a Divine, as some argued last chapter, I would still guess it's a broodling for one of the Divines. Considering the symbol, I can't imagine there isn't a connection.
Of course, the symbol itself is the biggest variable in this equation. Why did it call Rainbow this way? What might it have to do with the Divines? I expect some answers will come in the following sixteen chapters.
Umm...yeah....anyone remember the time before last when Rainbow confronted a dragon?
Yeah...that didn't end in a very fun way...
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I hope not. :c
I still don't think it's Axan...
That's not to say we won't see her, though. Who knows what will happen.
This story is so unpredictable I can do little more than guess.
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I sure hope it wasn't electronics. When you release mysterious smoke from electronics, it doesn't work any more.
Sudden appearance of dense fog? In a mine? Sounds like these ponies breached the machine world. And the fog sounds a lot like what we saw in Windthrow. If that's the case then the dragon is there to protect this town.
Well... Silver mines? In the earth? One more flame before the Grand Choke?
ALSO: Pronunciation note: Assuming that the "ae"s in Yaerfaerda are actually the fused æ ligature (as in Encyclopædia Britannica), the word is pronounced "Yar-far-dah."
4935171 :O I missed that. Nice catch!
The chapter reeks of Windthrow.
Now let's just find another Gold Petals.
Sylvadel in the making. But Rainbow's not gonna let that happen.
Go, Rainbow! Go!
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Great now I want to watch DS9 again.
Perhaps the point of Eljunbrio was to bring the wind to rainbow in another way.
Perhaps it was for them to help her remove her ailment of chaos and allow her to fly with considerably less baggage.
I sense the story becoming a race to cure rainbow.
Rainbow, you've gotta stop calling Roarke "sister" if you're banging her...
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Sorry, but according to canon it's pronounced "Yiffy-what".
Getting the feeling that the dragon is actually the good guy/girl here. Hopefully we can get a nice spelunking story out of this with tension for rainbow with being unable to fly underground.
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Hey, its not my fault that I'm a judgemental asshole. I must have some motivation beyond my mine getting wrecked for being so rude and discriminatory, right?
4935097 Her Roarkiness is just too much for them.
4935283 4935325 In the same vein, nothing is suggesting that it ISN'T Axan.
4935457 Well, she, uh, she won at least...
Well, up until the whole meta-stuff came up again, this entire setting felt so much like Windthrow that I just kind of instantly fell in love with it.
Ah, the mists from the earth. Almost a pity that the dragon didn't come right out of there, then we'd have a perfect Reign of Fire reference.
4935283 Plausible, but not entirely certain. She might as well desire whatever is in there and simply be not entirely ruthless while trying to get it. Whatever is in there, it is doubtlessly connected to the world machine - otherwhise it wouldn't be bound to the Austraeoh as well. Now we still don't know who that dragon is, and as a result we do not know how much she knows. If she truly is Axan, she knows more than we do. If she isn't, her knowledge might range from perfectly aware of the entire situation to almost feral, just driven by greed. I doubt it's the latter, but as of now we cannot tell where on that scale she's set.
Oh girl but you have no idea who you're dealing with...
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That's good.
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Qapla'!
Thirty crunches, ):(. Knock 'em out!
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For all we know, it tried.
But when you see a huge menacing dragon flying towards your home, the first obvious choices are either panicking, or trying to take it down before it gets you and everything you ever loved, so I doubt they'd give the dragon much of a chance either way.
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Well, Jerrio turned out to be a pretty cool guy, which has given me hope for all the ass hole character we shall meet now. He probably needs
the dragon to stopa vacation or something.Accidentaly hitting the Jury, instead of the impossible to hit dragon?
I apologise for the,
<sunglasses>
Hiccup.
Also, given that much insane weapon systems, there should really be only two types of dragon that wouldnt be hurt by now.
Nightfury, Stealth and ajility.
Illusion.
I may be hading off totally the wrong direction, but the whole thing, with the information so far, reeks of The Lounge or other similar technical abilities, setting up the classic scare everyone off and keep them scared on discovery of wealth beyond imagining, such as the entrance tothe Machine World.
Unfortunately Spike stayed behind, but, I wonder if its still possible to have a cameo from Daring scrappy Do.
A prolem with Dragons, is that if their scales are iinately at least diamond hardness, then it would be easier to cause blunt trauma, hence th heavy weapons, than precision penetration. Ive ony heard of one mineal thats harder than diamond, a boron nitride variant, of which sample discoverd, the only existance, is about the size of a grain of rice at most. Earth ponies and Unicorn artificers of the topmost level should be able to slowly copy its structure onto items, but given RL deposition rates are microns an hour, a thousand times faster means it would take a good part of an hour of intense concentration to coat one arrowhead. You can do appropiate scaling as you wish.
I think it may be time to bring out The Detritus Special.
The Piece Maker.
And now Rainbow will save the town without bloodshed, and Drakshaa will shut up, hopefully by dying.
Roarke's that much scarier when she has something she really, really wants to protect.
I'm gonna call it now, this is actually a different Divine entirely. How many were there again? Then again, Axan was never exactly a saint either.
4938385 You mess with the Bow, you get the horn(y metal mare).
img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140505011904/rise-of-the-brave-tangled-dragons/images/c/cb/Kiss-couple-romance-touch-feeling-happy-hug-embrace-love-beautiful-dragon-hunters-movie-poster-camila-lima-anas-ahmed.jpg
4939637
Its a IRL book series, called "The Skinjacker Trilogy".
List: Everlost, Everfree, Everfound.
The series opens with the deurotagonists dying within the first chapter. Yes, you read that right. Its a ghost story. Kids who screw up dying properly (aka missed the light) end up in a world called "Everlost," where only memories of times lost are real. For example, a forest fire leaves behind corpses. Those corpses are reborn in Everlost, frozen in the time of death, forever. The Twin Towers, Hinderburg, and old railways are all forever preserved in Everlost.
One's appearance is ephemeral. You can forget your name, your face, and when it changes, you can't remember the difference. One person had shark teeth because he believed he looked like a shark. Overtime, it became true. One person died in a swimming pool, and all he could remember was that he was soaking wet. So he walked around dripping water in Speedos. Can't take the clothes off either, since it has become part of their identity.
The two protagonists are dumped into this in-between world, and as they travel around, they unravel some mysteries and create some of their own.
Skinjacker is the name of the series for a reason. They can possess people, a very, very valuable skill.
voting on Axan
4935266 it has come full circle
What a strange coincidence! Another story on fimfiction is titled 'Whelp, better late than never (v2)'
I am slowly catching up. I read the latter fourth of Book 2 and all of Book 3 in the span of two days. Let's go baby, catching up if it kills me.
4940586 But if you die, you can't read the rest!
Roarke is the most adorable killing machine
.
I think this dragon is gonna end up a nice girl. What? I can hope cant I?
A new end boss appears!
Disk 5 boss incoming, and why do I have a feeling the party is underlevelled
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Wait wait wat, guys. I know I'm commenting more than a month late, but we've MISSED SOMETHING IMPORTANT HERE.
Remember Eljunbyro?
guys
how did we miss this it was staring us right in the bucking face
this is important.
5097071
i honestly think Colon made a mistake with naming this pony. because shell made it perfectly clear -before he fully lost his shit- that he killed his wife.
Damn me to the fiery depths of HELL if this is THAT Merrigold...