• Published 30th Mar 2012
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World of Ponycraft - Capn_Chryssalid



MLP meets World of Warcraft ... the MMO. Forget Worgen. Alliance has Ponies.

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Chapter Three

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(3)
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- - - (3) - - -

Twilight couldn’t help but look surprised seeing Pinkie Pie stop, having finally filled her saddlebags with all the necessary treats and “essentials” from Sugarcube Corner… and then promptly transform into a ghostly pink wolf with a puffy candy colored mane, like some kind of wild phantom poodle. Her bags vanished in a puff of magical smoke and, tail wagging, Pinkie Pie sat down and blissfully scratched behind her ear with a hindhoof - er - hindleg. It was just so random and sudden.

“So that’s what her travel form looks like?” Spike said from her back, cracking off the edge of a gem as he indulged in a quick magic-burning snack.

Pinkie-Ghostwolf nodded enthusiastically, having clearly overheard.

With a crackle and another puff of elemental smoke, the pony returned, transforming back to normal, saddlebags and armor and all. Her attire was patchwork and makeshift, with bits and pieces thrown in; colors contrasting and clashing without a care in the world. Sticking her snout into one of the bags, Pinkie retrieved a large mace and put it on the ground before slipping her hooves into a pair of furry bracers bound by leather. Leather and other animal products weren’t unusual in Equestria – especially in the colder months when many ponies outdoors preferred boots and coats – but these felt faintly magical.

Twilight took the brief pre-occupation of her friend to use one of her inspection spell-like abilities. Pinkie was swapping in and out some equipment, most of it identified as ‘green’ or uncommon by the Azerothian standard. Gaps were filled in with some common, ‘white’ gear, and surprisingly some engineer-specific googles that the party pony fitted snugly in place despite her unruly pink mane.

“Oh! Oh! Turn into a wolf again!” the excited voice belonged to one Apple Bloom. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had followed their sisters to the Ponyville bank, but Apple Bloom had remained behind to follow the unicorn and Earth pony around as they prepared to head out. She seemed to have a particular interest in Pinke Pie, and when the party pony did anything unusual. Of course, Pinkie was always doing something unusual…

“Like this?” Pinkie asked, poofing back into an ethereal lupine again. She then hopped up, balancing on her back legs and swaying side to side.

“That’s sooooo cool!” Apple Bloom edged a bit closer, tentatively poking the partly insubstantial wolf’s tail. “Does it feel funny?”

Unable to answer, Pinkie had to settle for shaking her head.

She then leaned in and gave the filly a sloppy lick.

“Aw! Gross!” Apple Bloom gasped and fell back on her rump. Pinkie-Wolf’s reaction was a vaguely snickering and mischievous ‘he-he-he’ – the sort of laugh you’d expect after flushing a pair of ducks out of a bush.

“What about us, Spike?” Twilight asked, looking over her shoulder at the baby dragon. “I assume we have everything on the checklist?”

“Supplies check. Bandages check,” spike read from a quickly retrieved scroll. “Boots, check. Cloak, check. Binoculars, check. Camping equipment, check. Campfire kit, check. Bits, check. Maps, check. Spellbook, check… you should really get some glyphs, though…”

Soon satisfied that they were basically ready, Twilight allowed her attention to drift back to Pinkie and Apple Bloom. The filly was now riding the transformed pony, holding onto the pink mane and laughing as the ghostwolf ran around in zany circles.

“Wee! Yea! Ride ‘em cowpony!” Only to get bucked off and onto her back. “Hey!”

Apple Bloom’s eyes hooded at the sight of ghostwolf-Pinkie Pie nibbling at her side, behaving perhaps a little too canine-like for comfort. Then again, when you had an itch that needed scratching…

“Okay, everypony!” Twilight spoke up, getting the attention of the two Earth ponies. “Shall we go meet up with the others at the bank?”

Pinkie de-transformed again, if only to give a cheerful, “Okey dokey!”

The two trotted up to accompany the librarian as they headed to the west side of Ponyville near the town hall. Apple Bloom notably stuck to Pinkie’s side, watching her with wide, curious eyes. Twilight couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the attention the little filly was giving her goofy friend.

“Hey, um, Pinkie Pie…” the Cutie Mark Crusader broached after a minute. “What’s it like using magic?”

“You know, I use magic, too,” Twilight reminded her.

“Unicorns are born using magic,” Apple Bloom replied, taking a peek around Pinkie Pie’s chest. “Even Sweetie Bell knows a little. Ya’ll are probably used to it.”

Pinkie giggled, seeing what was at the root of Apple Bloom’s curiosity. “It isn’t really using magic, silly! Shamans channel magic, they don’t really use it.”

“That’s an interesting way of phrasing it,” Twilight observed. “What’s the difference?”

“Ummmmm.” Pinkie tapped a hoof to her chin as she switched from walking to hopping.

“Ah! I know!” she suddenly exclaimed, smiling at Apple Bloom. “What most magic users do is like apple bucking. So the tree is basically like the source of magic. You give it a kick!” And here she kicked with her back legs, Applejack style. “And spells happen! That’s the apples falling down.”

“Earth Ponies can’t really do that,” she continued, returning to four legs. “We have to wait for the apples to fall or grab them without touching the tree.”

Seeing Apple Bloom still grappling with the analogy, Pinkie Pie rolled her head back and forth, trying to explain it another way:

“Basically, we ask the elements to do what we want them to. Most of the time they listen because they’re our friends.”

“The elements are our friends?” Apple Bloom asked, she clearly kind of got the idea, but only in part.

“Sure they are!” Pinkie’s grin grew even wider. “Think about sitting in front of a warm fire with some freshly baked muffins, or drinking cold water after a long day! Where would apples grow if we didn’t have the earth and the dirt and rocks? What would we breathe without air? When all these things come together, that’s what gives us life. You see?”

“But fire can burn ponies, too,” Apple Bloom argued. “And ya can’t breathe in water, and rocks can hurt if’n ya get hit by one.”

“Well, not every element is your friend,” the party pony admitted. “Most don’t care and a lot of them are kind of mean. Especially the really big, old ones that remember when there were no ponies around. The trick is to find some nice ones and make friends.”

“And that’s what you did?” Twilight asked, intrigued. “I’ve read about Shamans learning to commune with the elements.”

“Commune with the elements?” Pinkie asked, tilting her head cutely in would-be confusion. “I guess you could do that.”

“You didn’t?” the unicorn asked, and sighed. “Let me guess…”

“I just held a big party for them!” Pinkie confirmed what her studious friend had been thinking and pirouetted in midair with a happy bounce. “And I made them like me! Now I’ve got Rocky, and Sparky, and Gassy and Splashy and they’re my elemental buddies and we’ll be friends forever and we’re going to have all kind of adventures and we’ll go to Molten Core and the Skywall and the Abyssal Maw and Stonecore and - !”

“Do ya think Ah could become a Shaman?” Apple Bloom cautiously asked, ducking her head at the spinning pink force of nature to avoid being blindsided by her impossibly puffed tail.

“Do you want to be a Shaman?” Pinkie asked, popping up beside the filly. “Once you pick a class, you’re stuck with it, you know. Stuck with it…”

“Forever,” Twilight finished with faux ominousness, pre-empting the wacky pony and rather amused by having done so.

“I was going to say: until Blizzard allows class changes,” Pinkie corrected, to Apple Bloom and Twilight’s confusion. “But since that probably won’t happen-” She gave Apple Bloom a playful poke. “Forever! So, do you want to be a Shaman?”

“…Ah dunno,” the little filly demurred. “Ah just want mah cutie mark, but since only Earth Ponies can be Shaman, Ah wouldn’t be able to get mah mark with Scootallo and Sweetie Belle.” The thought of getting her mark doing something her friends couldn’t even participate in clearly elicited some mixed feelings in the pint sized Crusader. “Why did you decide to be a Shaman anyway, Pinkie Pie?”

Glancing away for a moment, the older pony hesitated to answer right away.

“I had… a feeling,” she finally said, and shook her head furiously. “Anyway. We’re at the bank! Let’s get this party started, slow-pokey-heads!”

Transforming again, she raced ahead faster than Twilight could follow. Pinkie was quick in her normal pony form, but as a ghostwolf, she was just a peppermint blur. Following her at a more sedate pace, Twilight, Apple bloom and Spike (lazily riding his epic unicorn mount) trotted up the steps of the small bank. Inside they could see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, already ready. Rarity was still at the counter, fussily picking out a dress and jewelry to wear.

“This shield is so terrible,” Dash muttered, loud enough for her Twilight to hear even before she got too close. “If I have to go prot, I could use stam much more than str. I heard there’s a cool shield in Sunken Temple.”

“Um. Well. Maybe a new shield will drop in the castle. Maybe.”

“Yeah, maybe. Being ret is so much more fun, though!”

As Twilight approached, the pair greeted her and beckoned her over. Dash’s barding didn’t seem to have changed much, meaning she was going to go prot with what she had on her, basically. There was a prominent band around her right foreleg, however. Twilight’s identify/inspect spell helpfully marked it as an uncommon ‘ring’ with a lot of stamina on it.

Fluttershy was changed into an exotic ensemble: feathers curved back over her haunches and shoulders and lush greens and browns gave the impression of a forest in miniature growing protectively over her. A gnarled wooden staff was strapped to her back. Ironically, she looked to be the most prepared and well equipped of them all, and Twilight felt a bit self conscious in how under geared she was. This, despite scrounging around for any useful magical artifacts in storage that were worth dusting off.

“You ready?” Dash asked, eager to get going. Not even waiting for an answer, she turned to address the still bank-bound Rarity. “Come on already! How hard is it to throw on a cloak and a few rings?”

“I simply can not bear to go out with such a mis-matched ensemble!” the fashion conscious unicorn protested, swapping on and off a cloak while making up her mind. She’d settled on a white dress with deep blue trim, matching slippers for her hooves, and silvery rings around her forelegs. These were identified as self made by Twilight’s inspection spell, a result of Rarity’s skill in jewelcrafting.

“This will just have to do,” she lamented, turning around in a circle and affixing a silver clasp near the base of her tail. Facing her friends, she nodded, for the most part satisfied with how she looked. “I brought my jewelcrafting and tailoring equipment with me as well. I can make some mageweave bags for us with a few more bolts of cloth.”

“Oh, you don’t have to…” Fluttershy began.

“Really, it’s no problem at all!” she declared with a refined laugh. “And you, especially-” She pointed at Twilight. “Could really use some new saddlebags, dear. I also have some ideas for a divine new dress and cloak you can wear, all enchanted to boost intelligence. Oh, I do hope I have enough Vision Dust…!”

“Aw, come on!” Dash moaned, lowering her head in exhaustion. “Who’s organizing this run anyway?”

To no one’s surprise, the mares all turned to Twilight Sparkle.

“Um, I guess me?” the unicorn wondered, quickly catching herself and turning more confident. Organization was what she was known for after all. “I mean, sure! I’ll do it!”

“Oh, good!” Rarity slowly walked up, as they formed a small circle in the bank. “Fluttershy, would you pass party lead to Twilight?”

“Okay,” the soft spoke pegasus blinked. Twilight felt a strange power wash over her.

“So what next?” Twilight asked looking around at her friends. Only Applejack was missing. “This is my first time doing this, after all.”

“Do we have a designated de-enchanter?” Rarity inquired.

“That’d be me!” Spike answered, raising his hand. “…I think.”

“You think?” she asked, narrowing her eyes a bit. “Have you de-enchanted before, Spike?”

“Well, um,” he coughed, sitting back on Twilight’s saddle and tucking one foot in behind one of her bags. “Usually I eat what I de-enchant. But it shouldn’t be too hard. I just have to, you know, not swallow.”

For some reason, Pinkie giggled uncontrollably at that, softly tapping a hoof against the ground.

“Why don’t you try de-enchanting something?” Rarity asked, horn glowing as she levitated a ring out of one of her bags. Twilight ducked her head to the side slightly to let her assistant reach forward and pick it out of the air.

He looked from the ring to the jewelcrafter and tailor. “Are you sure?”

“The enchantment on that ring came out all wrong. Spirit and strength? Useless!” Rarity insisted he go ahead. “I was going to vendor it anyway.”

All eyes on him, even Twilight’s, Spike couldn’t help but blush under his scales. “Right. Right. No pressure.”

Opening his mouth, he held the ring up close to his teeth and inhaled slowly. He could taste the magic in the ring and felt his body respond, wanting to burn it from the material prison it was encased in. Briefly closing his mouth to wipe it with the back of his hand, he took a few more measured breaths and held the ring up as if to take a bite out of it.

‘Come on, Spike! Concentrate!’ Eyes snapping open, he felt a peculiar energy form around his tongue, and in one breath he expelled it. The ring in his hand vibrated violently, resisting his countermagic -

And then, with an audible snap, the ring came apart, turning into a pile of dust.

“Ah!” Twilight and Rarity gasped at the same time. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy leaned in, ‘ooing.’ Even Rainbow Dash looked impressed, though she expressed it with a somewhat smug ‘hmf.’ After only a moment, the still present Cutie Mark Crusaders joined in too.

“Way to go, Spike!” Apple Bloom cheered.

“Wow! How’d you do that?” Scootaloo asked, leaning against Twilight’s leg.

“Was that Dragon Magic?” Sweetie Belle reached up, jostling his leg and almost causing him to spill the dust. “Can we learn to do that?”

“That was very impressive, Spike,” Rarity’s praise gave the baby dragon cause to swell with pride. A telekinetic glow plucked the small pile of dust from his hand.

“I don’t get it,” Dash said, eyeing the Vision Dust he’d created. “How can Spike DE something without leveling enchanting?”

“Giddy App said I could do it, too,” he pointed out. “And he was level 85,” he added, just to make sure Dash knew that fact.

“It must be a racial,” Fluttershy suggested. “Like Everyman for Himself?”

“Seems pretty OP, but whatever,” the brash pegasus decided, shrugging. “So we have a designated DE. I guess I’m stuck tanking until we rope Applejack into this party as a new meatshield.”

“And Fluttershy is healing,” Twilight continued, taking out the guard’s map she’d been given earlier in the day. “The rest of us will be ‘damage and crowd control.’”

“DPS and CC,” Spike provided.

“Yes. That.” She still refused to slip into the shorthand the others had picked up. “As party lead, I’ll handle any rolls over drops. We’ll be using a ‘free for all’ system I read about, except for uncommons. You’re all familiar with those loot rules?”

The others nodded. It was pretty much standard.

“The Castle of the Sisters… Princess Luna’s castle ruins… are here.” Twilight highlighted a point on her map with a twinkle. No one was checking their maps, but if they had been, there would have been a reciprocal ping on them too. “It took us a full day of travel to get there the first time. We’re leaving late, but I think we can make it in about eight hours on hoof.”

“If only I had a Crusader Aura,” Rainbow Dash frowned.

“Fluttershy and I have travel forms. You want us to scout ahead and stuff?”

“That’s a good idea.” Twilight highlighted a patch through the woods. “We can take a path close to what we used before. The only problem is the bridge, but we’ll cross that when we get to it. If we can’t get across there, then we’ll have to circle around from the south.”

She rolled up the map and tucked it back into her bags.

“Sound good to everyone?”

Various words of agreement followed, and Twilight smiled inwardly. She tried not to let it show, but she was finding herself start to get excited. Despite the fact that they’d be headed back through the Everfree Forest again, they had a known destination and some solid objectives. Apple Bloom had also told them that there was supposed to be a group of Royal Guards somewhere out there near the castle and that they were the ones requesting help from local mercenaries. The only piece missing was Applejack.

She allowed a small smirk to grace her muzzle. “Let’s get our last member and head out.”

- - -

“Now what the hay is all this?”

They found Applejack out in the fields, for once not apple bucking. She was currently engrossed in the rather exciting part of her job called ‘inventory.’ Overlooking a hill by the south field of Sweet Apple Acres, the peach colored mare had a pencil in her mouth and a clipboard tied around her neck. A series of boxes were marked off on a piece of paper along with assorted notes and progress reports on the growth of various fields.

Seeing her friends heading up the hill, she’d waved to them warmly only to frown a bit after seeing how they were dressed. Many of them she hadn’t seen much of over the last few weeks: only Twilight and Rarity had stayed in the town after the Cataclysm. Now all of them were heading her way, and strange attire aside there was no mistaking the packed saddlebags they all wore.

Apple Bloom and her two friends raced ahead of the older ponies like a hyperactive school of fish.

Hence her question before: just what was going on here?

“Hi there, Applejack!” Pinkie was the first to call out, raising a hoof excitedly. “Want to come with us on a dangerous adventure? We’ve got four rezzers in case you die! So you can pick between Redemption or Revive or Resurrection or Ancestral Spirit! I think Ancestral Spirit is the best myself, but I’ve only been killed a few times so I haven’t experienced all of them yet!”

Dash chuckled at that. “I gotta get her into a battleground one of these days…”

“W-what?” the farmer girl could only ask.

“They’re headed to Nightmare Moon’s Castle to get us a record of the First Cutie Mark!” Sweetie Belle explained.

“And to fight evil Twilight Cult Ponies!” Scootaloo chimed in.

Apple Bloom handily tried to fill in the rest with a rapid fire explanation, “And to get cloth and xp and world drops and-”

“Woah nelly! Slow down a mite,” Applejack cut her little sister short and tucked the pencil in her mouth to a cloth loop on the side of her clipboard. “An start from the beginnin’ why don’tcha? There some kidna emergency or somethin’?”

Leading the party of ponies, Twilight Sparkle came ahead and did just that. Applejack listened while her friend outlined the various reasons they had for going out. There were quests for Ponyville, a job they’d somehow ended up taking for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Rarity’s problems at the Carousel Boutique with improving her tailoring and getting access to rare cloth and some kind of spider silk, Pinkie Pie’s desire to get levels in time for the Lunar Festival, and Fluttershy’s interest in the Darkmoon Faire and finding some rare pets to rescue. Taking it all in, the only one who didn’t seem to have a concrete objective in heading out was Twilight Sparkle herself, though she did claim to be interested in the possibility of there being archaeology finds near the castle ruins.

“So lemme see if’n Ah got this straight,” she said, after Twilight finished her story. “Ya’ll want to trot, happy as you please, right across Everfree forest?”

The five out of six Elements of Harmony nodded, more or less.

“The same Everfree forest we nearly got killed goin’ through before?” she asked. “The one that’s fulla all them manticores and cockatrices and monsters ‘a every sort imaginable?”

Again, they nodded, eagerly even. Well, except Fluttershy, who cringed a bit.

“Then ya’ll want to go fight some nasty ponies tha’ worship beings ‘a pure darkness an’ evil?”

More nods.

And then ya wanna take their treasures and root around them dangerous ruins fer all sorts ‘a ancient loot?

“Pretty much!” Pinkie confirmed. “Should be fun!”

“Can’t be any more dangerous than when Princess Celestia sent us after that dragon,” Dash argued, and nudged her fellow pegasus. “Right, Fluttershy?”

Whatever the pink maned flyer said in response to that was too low to be heard.

“There’ll be lots of go-o-ld!” Spike spoke up, wagging his scaly eyebrows.

“Gold?” Applejack’s businesswoman-senses started tingling.

“Gold,” the little dragon confirmed. “I mean, haven’t you seen some of these adventurer types around town? They’ve got thousands of gold coins on them. What was the exchange rate to bits again?”

“Twenty-one point five to one,” Applejack and Rarity both answered in unison. The two blinked, and Rarity couched politely.

“Gold,” Spike simply reiterated.

Gold was a very strong incentive, callous as that sounded. The farm was in a bit of a tough spot at the moment. A lot of their stock had been wiped out by rampaging fire elementals, requiring reseeding and replanting. They’d hired a pair of druids to help with that and the new trees were off to a great start, but there wasn’t much to do besides care for the growing trees and wait for them to flower again.

Up on the north fields, which had escaped unharmed, they’d just finished bucking the ripe apples. Normally, the farm operated on a rotation schedule anyway (with a staggered harvest over Spring and Fall), dependant on the pollination efforts of the nearby Honeycomb Family Farm’s many bee colonies. These were having trouble post-Catalcysm, and there was some concern over how much the pegasus ponies could do to keep the climate stable.

Not to criticize her beloved Apples, but they could be finicky crops and all the trees on the farm belonged to three well bred and well studied species. They were fast growing, needing only 15 weeks to mature compared to 17 for most apples, but they also required more Chill Hours than normal. Apple family records were very specific on the ideal being between 1200 and 1700 Chill Hours, and with reports of an Equestria-wide warming trend, there were potentially some looming environmental concerns ahead.

As a whole, then, not only were things looking out of sorts, for the first time in generations, farmers were also suffering from market saturation in Ponyville. There were just too many foreign foodstuffs coming into Equestria. After going over the books, she’d become convinced that the only way to pay off rebuilding the devastated fields by next quarter was to improve their export revenues. Applejack was not keen on taking out a new loan, especially in the post-Cataclysm financial market.

To that end, she’d toyed with selling apples outside Equestria. A few ‘market research focus groups’ (as the gnome had called them) had confirmed that non-ponies liked the species of apples grown at Sweet Apple, and the brand name itself had wide ranging appeal. Inside Equestria, there were dozens of other apple farms, but outside, the only major competitors were in Elwynn Forest and a few small outfits in Darnassus. The gnome had suggested looking for ‘investors’ to help them expand, but Applejack was weary of ‘incorporating’ the family farm outside the clan.

On the other hoof, if she raised the capital herself…

Plus, it would be helping Equestria and her friends! It would just also be helping the farm. That was, if there was gold to be made from the venture. It could be good advertising, too. What had the gnome said: ‘build the brand?’ Improving her ‘reputation’ overseas with allied nations would be doing just that.

Closing her eyes, Applejack imagined arriving in a vast city of stone parapets and streaming flags. Walking past giant stone statues that saluted her with raised forelegs, she could hear the cheering of grateful hundreds – no, thousands! Welcoming her. And there, up ahead, she could see Celestia and other less detailed figures, humanoids, awaiting her as well. They were all standing together on a dais, and Applejack stopped just short of them, bowing her head…

~

“Oh, King Wrynn, this is the valiant and industrious mare I told you about,” Celestia mentioned, whispering but loud enough to be heard.

“Of course. Applejack of Equestria!” A somewhat hazy and indistinct human figure next to the Princess announced in a deep voice. “I have heard much of her exploits.”

“As have I,” a shorter figure said, stroking a rich mane - er… beard… that grew from his chin. “She is much beloved in Ironforge.”

“They speak of her in Darnassus as well,” a tall, regal figure next to Celestia said in an authoritative female voice. “She has done much for our people.”

Two others (Applejack was less sure how to imagine them) nodded in approval.

“Arise, Applejack,” the tall humanoid declared, holding out a hoof – er hand. “You are known to all of us for your great deeds! Be known henceforth as Ambassador Applejack! Exalted of the Alliance!”

“Your Highnesses,” Applejack addressed them with a courteous but simple bow. “Ah’ve come to share with ya the finest fruits of Equestria! Hard work. Honesty. Good healthy livin’ – That’s what Sweet Apple Acres believes in. I grew these just fer ya’ll and ah’d be honored if’n ya tried ‘em.”

A basket full of perfect, flawless apples appeared (somehow) right in front of the Alliance leaders. Apples appeared in their hooves (hands, too) and as one they bit down. For a few seconds, there was only silence. Then -

“These are… DELICIOUS!” the human King roared. “I believe they would make a most wonderful cider!”

“They would, yer highness!” Applejack readily agreed.

“I have never had such a succulent treat,” The tall night elf … er: princess? Priestess? Applejack forgot. Princess sounded right.

“Nor have I!” exclaimed the dwarf lord.

“Well, they are the finest in Equestria,” Celestia bragged, sending a conspiratorial wink her subject’s way.

~

Rocking back on her haunches, Applejack blinked, slowly coming out of her daydream.

Her friends were still staring at her. All except one....

“That was a fun dream!” Pinkie Pie jumped out from behind her. “So you want Rep, huh?”

“Applejack?” Twilight asked, cocking her head to the side.

Apple green eyes narrowed.

“…I’m in.”

- - -


The last, quick stop before they entered Everfree Forest was Fluttershy’s House, to set their hearthstones. Twilight had offered to let them use the Library for that purpose, but since they needed to check in on her animals there anyway it made for a convenient location. It was close to the forest, well stocked, and along Mailmare Doo’s usual route in case anyone needed to use the mailbox. It was there that the Cutie Mark Crusaders also went their own way, taking out hearthstones of their own.

“Take care, sis!” “Be careful!” “Come back with lots of loot!”

And with three magical teleportation circles and a flash of like, the busy little fillies were gone.

“At this rate, they’ll have a guild bank before you even have a guild name,” Spike couldn’t help but observe with a little laugh.

“You know, it isn’t a competition!” Twilight argued, giving her perennial rider a little shake for emphasis.

‘Not that we should be competing with a bunch of fillies anyway.’

The exchange seemed to have gotten some attention, however.

“What isn’t a competition?” Rainbow Dash asked, already heading towards the forest. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had already headed in using their ghost wolf and feral kitty forms respectively, letting Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack form a rough party carrying most of their gear.

“Nothing important,” Twilight replied, catching up.

Dash made a thoughtful noise at that, which quickly morphed into a smirk and a snort. “Actually, I always kinda figured most everything is a competition in one way or another. You can’t always win of course, but you’re always trying to be better at something than someone, right?”

“As long as one strives for excellence,” Rarity agreed, inclining her head towards the pegasus as she walked. “But it is rather unseemly to treat life like a contest. It is… more like a pageant.”

“You mean a chance to show off?”

“Thee you go, putting things is the most crass light possible.”

“A pageant IS a contest...”

“No, a pageant is a show. There is a difference between…”

Twilight and Applejack shared a glance and collectively rolled their eyes. Even with Pinkie Pie’s chatter cut off by her travel form, it seemed they wouldn’t lack for background noise.

Everfree, meanwhile, was just the same as always. Parts of it had been set ablaze by Deathwing weeks ago, but it had recovered more quickly than the areas that relied on ponies to stop wildfires and maintain meticulous grasslands. Everfree, like a giant tangle of weeds, was resilient and hard to get rid of, to the point where ponykind had long since given up and decided to just live with the blemish next door.

Everfree grew all around them in a haphazard maze of tress and shrubs, lacking any sense or order or symmetry. That alone made it frightening and offensive to pony sensibilities. The canopy of leaves above had, over the centuries, grown so thick that neither the sun nor the moon could entirely pierce the gloom that ruled over the cursed forest. No animals dared to approach the party of ponies, either. The inhabitants of this place, so used to living in fear, shied away from any possible threat. Occasionally a rustle of branches and leaves could be heard, but for the most part the band of mares was either ignored or avoided by the forest at large.

As they walked onward, sometimes chatting sometimes in silence, Twilight reflected on what she had read of other lands. Contrary to what ponies had thought, pre-Cataclysm, most of the world was “wild” like Everfree. Forests and Swamps grew in vast untamed stretches that covered whole regions. Humans and other races cleared some of these areas for farmland, and logged others for wood, but made no effort to create human (or pony) friendly forests. No one bothered to try and control the weather year round, even though she had read about spells that could do so over small areas. The night elves tended to their forest homes, according to a travel book she’d gotten a copy of, but what they did was mostly ‘preservation’ and not actual ‘alteration.’

From an outsider’s perspective, Everfree was probably more ‘normal’ than the ordered lands ponies created for themselves, full of neatly organized trees, tame ‘wildlife’ and choreographed seasonal weather. Continuing deeper into the wilderness, Twilight Sparkle tried to imagine when – and if – all of Equestria had been like Everfree. It must have been at some point, before ponies settled down in large numbers and started to re-organize and… and ponify… things. What had those early primitive ponies thought, back then? Were they just defending themselves from the dangers of the wild? Why bother taming the wildlife?

‘Maybe I’m just over thinking things?’ she wondered, and looked up to try and see the sky. It was dark, fast approaching her namesake. Celestia’s sun was likely to already be sinking under the horizon, making its slow circuit around the world to illuminate other lands. Luna’s moon would already be out, somewhere, basking in the fading glow of her sister.

Applejack slowed and glanced over her shoulder, as if sensing Twilight’s thoughts. “Ya think we should take ah break, sugarcube?”

“We’re making good time.” Twilight double checked her map and the six small glowing dots that moved slowly across it. “Bu-ut, since we don’t know what’s waiting for us at the castle ruins, I think we should rest up and have a go at it tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good to me; I’m absolutely famished!” Rarity gracefully spun around to walk backwards for a few steps. “Now if only there was a clean spot somewhere in this dirty forest. A nice field of freshly cut grass perhaps?”

“The ground cover is full of ticks. Um... so you wouldn’t want to sleep in it.”

The soft spoken correction came from the brush nearby, which parted silently to reveal a golden feline with bright pink eyes. The leopard moved so quietly, so invisibly, that it all but shimmered into view as it crept forward. A mane of soft pink hair curled gracefully back down its neck, and faint blue streaks, like tattoos, occupied the sides of the face and the corners of the eyes: two arches, connecting , facing inward towards the nose, with an extra streak over the brow. It was the shape of a butterfly, half of it to the left of the face and half to the right.

Fluttershy was already morphing out of her kitty form, allowing her to speak: her paws turning back into hooves and her mane lengthening and falling forward to cover part of her face. Her saddlebags appeared from underneath her formerly feline coat, and a quartet of vicious canines retreated into the corners of her mouth. A long, solid gold tail became thinner and morphed into pink before flaring and filling out.

“Ticks?” Rarity asked, not particularly distracted by the transformation and focused more on the disgusting little monsters in the forest that they couldn’t see. “How disgusting!” She took a step back from her pegasus friend. “You don’t have any, do you? You and Pinkie have been tramping in and out of the bushes all day!”

“N-no. I don’t.” Fluttershy replied in a small voice. “I know how to get them to leave me alone.”

“Is there anywhere nearby we can set up for the night?” Twilight asked, trying to get them focused again.

“Nearby isn’t good,” the nature loving flyer told her with a concerned expression. “There are a few manticores hunting close to here.”

“Manticores?” Twilight asked. “Why haven’t they attacked us?”

“Pinkie Pie and I scared one off. The others smell us, but know we’re too dangerous to attack.”

The bookish unicorn raised an eyebrow at that, curious. “What do you mean?”

“We’re stronger now than we were a year ago,” Rainbow Dash reminded her with a meaningful look on her face. “Plus, Fluttershy and Pinkie are higher level and tougher than anyone here except me.”

“They are?” Twilight couldn’t help but ask.

“I don’t know where they got it, but both of them have some solid pve gear for their level,” Dash explained.

Fluttershy, shrinking visibly at the attention and comparative praise, muttered something too quietly to be heard. Then, mustering her determination a bit, reminding herself that she was – after all – around her closest friends, she perked up.

“The manticore from before only attacked us because it was hurt,” she said, more eager to defend predatory wildlife than herself. At least verbally. “Still, we shouldn’t set up camp here or try to tempt one of them. Pinkie Pie and I found a better place, near the top of a hill.”

“Sounds perfect.” Twilight trusted Fluttershy’s judgment when it came to moving around in Everfree. Even before becoming a druid, she had more experience in the forest than anyone except Zecora. Pinkie Pie – well, less so, but she’d clearly been doing fine so far helping Fluttershy scout ahead and trail-blaze.

Fluttershy remained in her normal pony form as she led them through a thinner section of forest off the trail they’d been following. Many of the thicker knots of plants seemed to part for them, and before long they were headed up a slight incline. At the top of the small hill, they could see Pinkie Pie also in her pony form, setting up a small camp.

Twilight could also see why this small hilltop was mostly clear of trees: there were a few decrepit stone foundations sticking out of the earth. Taking in a lay of the land, she figured it may once have been the foundation of a wood and stone tower in ages past. According to the old records, Ponyville and other Earth pony villages had once built palisades for protection. Most had fallen into ruin and never been replaced in the pre-modern eras. Hundreds of years ago, this could once have been part of a guard post. Since them, it may have been used as a camp site by forest gatherers looking for rare herbs or mushrooms.

A strange looking… thing also greeted them as they approached.

It was stuck in the ground, like a large wooden peg, but the body was coiled and brightly colored. Festive, even. Bright blue streamers wafted up along its sides, announcing its presence. Above those floated an orb, very much like a disembodied eye, which watched them, unblinking but not with any malice. After a few seconds, in fact, the blue eye ignored them and returned to looking at the nearby forest.

“A sentry ward,” Spike explained. “Pinkie Pie’s I guess?”

She had also set up a circle of rocks near the stone foundations and put together some kindling.

Pinkie herself quickly dropped one more log nearby, but not in the fire pit, and headed over.

“What’ya’think?” she asked, all smiles. “Not bad for such short notice, huh? Once we get a fire going we can make smores and cook hotdogs and tell ghost stories!”

Applejack couldn’t hide her grimace, as impressed as everyone was with the partly setup campsite. “You don’t actually eat those things, do you?”

“What? Smores?” Pinkie asked, clueless. Her head tilted almost sixty degrees. “What’s wrong with smores?”

The apple farmer heaved a sigh at her friend’s zaniness and opted not to press.

Before too long, they’d set up the rest of the camp. Someone had started up a small fire, and yes, they had immediately wet their pallet by making smores and marshmallows. If Pinkie had actually brought any hot dogs, she hadn’t cooked or eaten them while the others were around. Despite being deep in Everfree, Twilight felt remarkably at ease with her friends nearby. Perhaps it was because they were stronger than they had been a year ago? Maybe it was simply that, after being in the forest a few times now, she’d gotten sort of used to it.

While everyone else relaxed and unwound on their various sleeping mats and rolls, Twilight took some time to explore the foundations of the old tower a bit more closely. She didn’t really expect to find much. Even in Everfree, ruins like this had been picked over by generations of looters and scavengers, both pony and otherwise. Rarity’s gem location spell quickly confirmed that there was nothing valuable nearby. You never found any gems in Everfree anyway, and everyone knew that fact. This just verified it.

Even if there wasn’t any gold or gems to be found, the ruins themselves still had archaeological value. Spike was soon asleep, so Twilight used her magic to work alone by the light of the fire. She could hear her friends talking more quietly now and didn’t need to stray very far. She measured and sketched out what she could see of the stone structure. Some of it had sunken, absorbed by the earth below, but most was still above ground. After a while, she began to wonder if the “hill” itself was too symmetrical to be natural. Another archaeology-specific spell indicated that the ground was packed in layers.

Sitting down and taking out one of her books, she skimmed through, looking for a certain entry –

Packed Earth Mounds: cross-referenced with Early-Dynasty Burial Mounds. Fascinated, Twilight stood back up and decided to try her hand at a little surveying. Setting up the proper spells and inducements, she finally staked down a survey post. Swiveling the head around, she let it come to a stop. A gem inlaid into the magical dowsing scope glowed yellow.

‘Close!’

That was a surprise. She hadn’t expected the spells to find anything of value at all!

Taking a dozen careful steps forward, in the direction indicated by the survey tools, she tried again. This time, the scope pointed in another direction and glowed green. Concentrating enough that it silenced her internal whoop of excitement, Twilight took a few more steps and tried again. The scope pointed in the opposite direction as before, but was still green. She’d overshot the target a bit!

Horn glowing, the studious unicorn retraced her steps and carefully started digging. She didn’t dare use her hooves – if there was something delicate down there then she’d risk damaging it like that. Instead, she telekinetically parted the earth, layer by layer. Soon she hit loose earth, packed with many small, uniform stones. Parting them, careful to pile them up to the side, she soon hit what looked like another piece of buried stone foundation.

A small frown creased her brows at the find… but then as she wiped away more of the dirt, she saw a symbol etched into the stone. Taking out a cloth and brush, she cleaned it and removed what had to be centuries of dirt. The symbol quickly became more distinct, but it still wasn’t one she recognized. It wasn’t from the Ancient Equestrian phonetic or the modern alphanumeric system.

Setting up a bright glow-light of her own to help her see, she peered down at the etching. It was rough, but definitely pony-made, and it must have meant something. But what?

“What’chall doin’ over ere?” a familiar voice asked, as Applejack and Rainbow Dash came by to investigate. Rarity and Fluttershy were still by the fire, but Pinkie Pie was conspicuously craning her neck and looking over in Twilight’s direction from her spot by the fire.

“Aw man, Arch?” Dash asked, shaking her head sadly. “I tell ya, that’s stuff is such a waste of time!”

Ignoring that one comment, Twilight pointed towards the symbol in the stone she’d unearthed. “Does that look like anything to you?”

“I’ll tell you what it doesn’t look like. Zin'rokh, Destroyer of Worlds.” Dash gazed longingly at the sky. “Oh, how I would love to have that sword…!”

Again ignoring the Ret Pally, Twilight looked to Applejack. The farmer seemed to be at least looking closely at the stone. She lowered down on her front legs, craned her neck, and then stood back up.

“Ah’d say it looks a bit like a tree,” she finally replied.

“Great. Someone carved a picture of a tree into some old rock.” Dash didn’t sound impressed. “It’s probably some ancient grafitti or something.”

Growing a bit bolder, and taking advantage of Twilight’s silence as she pondered the mystery, Applejack reached down and knocked on the stone with her hoof. Twilight immediately gasped at the possible damage this was doing, but then she and Applejack stopped, realizing something. The apple farmer knocked again, and nodded. They’d both heard it.

“It’s hollow?” Twilight asked, and quickly started clearing more and more dirt away from the sides. She soon uncovered what was around the square stone: four slabs of rock, cut (mostly) square, and overlapping on the sides. Together it looked like they formed a rough cube. The stone with the mark was just a cover put on top.

Ah!

“I think this is a cist,” she realized, circling around to the other side.

Rainbow Dash, still hovering nearby, came closer to see for herself. “A what?”

“A cist,” Twilight informed her. “A sort of burial pit, dug into the earth. I thought this hill was kind of suspicious. I think the whole thing is a burial mound of some sort.”

“So this is a grave?” the pegasus asked, pointing down at the capstone.

Twilight nodded, excited by her discovery and allowing it to show on her face. “I think so!”

“Well, that’s interestin’ and all,” Applejack observed, backing away a bit. “But now that ya know that, doya really think ya should be pokin’ around it like this?”

“I would like to investigate it more closely,” Twilight admitted, giving the cist another look. “But I guess I don’t want to be disrespectful.” Remembering something, she looked up at Dash with bright, violet eyes. “Of course! You’re a paladin, right?”

“Um. Yeah.” The pegasus replied. “Duh. So what?”

“So,” the unicorn answered. “You can open this up without spiritually disturbing anything inside.”

“Woah! Wait a second!” She held up her front hooves, both of them, in a warding gesture. “First of all, I’m a Retribution Paladin, not a Holy Paladin. Second, I was only shown pagasus rites. We’ve always cremated our dead and then scattered the ashes; we don’t bury them. There’s no way this-” she gestured to the grave. “Is a pegasus.”

Twilight frowned at being so easily rebuked. She did want to investigate her first real, honest-to-Celestia archaeology find…! But she didn’t want to disturb any of the buried dead. Most of the time the deceased had long since passed on and didn’t care what happened to their mortal remains, but every so often legitimate archaeological investigation would be mistaken for tomb robbing (of all things!) and that could lead to trouble. Restless spirits could be created or let loose, or tomb guardians woken up. She’d heard stories about unicorns in older eras enchanting their sacred mortuaries to protect the magical remains within.

“I’ll do it!” a bubbly voice chirped, and Pinkie Pie was already straddling the cist with her hooves in the air. She struck a dramatic pose… only to fall onto all fours and knock at the grave’s capstone.

“Hey there! Anyone home? Mind if we poke around a bit?” the party pony cocked her head to the side, as if hearing some unspoken reply. “Huh? What’s wrong? We wouldn’t do anything like that!”

Drawing back a bit, she frowned, and then turned on the stone marker with a pout, big eyes and all.

“Oh, come on, please? Pretty please? With cherries and whipped cream and hot sauce on top?” Again, her expression changed, and she drew back. “You… you don’t know what whipped cream is? Or hot sauce? Wow, that sucks! I wish I could give you some.”

She abruptly giggled, still carrying on her one-sided conversation.

“No, silly! Here!” she jumped over to where Twilight stood, perplexed by just how far her friend was taking things. Pinkie poked her in the chest. “This is Twilight Sparkle. She loves books and learning new things. See now? We’re all friends! So you don’t mind if she…?” The pink pony’s eyes widened and she smiled. “Hey, thanks!”

“Okay,” she said, finally addressing someone living. Twilight in this case. “You can go ahead and pop the top.”

“Did you just…” Applejack searched for the words for a moment. “Yer just pullin our tails, right, sugarcube? Ya didn’t just talk to some dead pony, didya?”

“I dunno,” Pinkie’s reply was frustratingly evasive. “Maybe.”

“If we have permission, then,” Twilight ventured, and her horn glowed as she lifted. The capstone shed a layer of loose, sandy dirt, and shook as it pulled out of a hidden wedge in the walls around it. The cist was built well, and had held up against the elements for a long time. Levitating the capstone away, Twilight moved it off to the side and set it down, careful to keep it from chipping or breaking.

There was disappointingly little inside, but then that made sense. Pony bodies didn’t survive forever and even bones would disintegrate after centuries. The little tomb she’d found had been tight, but not airtight, and the Everfree forest was damp with lots of insect and plantlife. The floor of the burial pit was dark with accumulated detritus and dirt.

Moving some of it around, brushing it away with an archaeology spell, she caught a hint of dirty white: bone! So there were some remains left. Moving side by side, she soon found a few other artifacts, laid to rest with the pony inside.

Picking one out, Twilight brought it up to her face for a closer look. Applejack and even Dash were clustered close by, and Rarity and Fluttershy had also been drawn over, all of them curious to see what had been unearthed just a couple feet from where they had made camp. Dash, in particular, had tried to look disinterested but soon her rust colored eyes widened with wonder as she looked around inside the ancient grave. Maybe she was hoping there’d be some ancient and powerful artifact inside?

Twilight focused on what she considered the most interesting of the artifacts. It was a small sculpture of a pony. She was clearly female and very pregnant, sitting on her haunches, and with what looked like a rod in her mouth. Part of it was chipped or broken, as was part of her mane. The whole thing was made of clay, to Rarity’s disappointment, but most fascinating of all was that this pregnant unicorn mare had wings. They looked like wings, anyway. The sculpture was somewhat crude.

“Oooh! An Earthmother figure?” Pinkie inquired, leaning over Twilight’s shoulder.

The unicorn was a bit surprised to hear her friend’s guess. She’d been thinking something similar.

“Do you mean the Tauren Earthmother, or the actual one?” Twilight asked. This was something a shaman would know.

“Ummm!” Pinkie sat back, scratching her head. “I’m not sure. I’ve heard about the Earthmother, but I think that was the Elemental one. I don’t think she looks like that.”

“It’s an alicorn,” Applejack reminded them of the obvious, pointing with her nose but not getting too close. “Like Princess Celestia.” She coughed and quickly added, “Or Princess Luna.”

“Maybe there used to be more of them?” Fluttershy suggested.

“You don’t suppose this guy here was one, too?” Dash wondered, and reached down to try and find some evidence of wings or a horn in the skeleton below.

“Ah! Do be careful!” Rarity thankfully caught the pegasus’s hoof before it could do any damage. “Anything you touch is likely to crumble to dust.”

“Oh. Oh yeah.” Rainbow pulled her foreleg back and out of the burial pit. “Sorry.”

“If it is an alicorn…!” Twilight set the ‘earthmother’ figurine down close by and brushed away some of the dirt where she thought the skull to be. Bit by bit, she uncovered more of the skeleton. The curve of the skull become clearer, but as it did so, it also became clear that there was no horn.

“Even if it broke off, there’d be some sign of it,” she finally realized. The skull was, as far as she could tell, perfectly smooth around the forehead. This was either a pegasus or Earth pony. Probably the latter, though finding delicate wing bones in any condition would be surprising. Pegasus shoulders were markedly distinct, though, and those would be prominent.

“So much fer findin’ Princess Celestia’s grandma,” Applejack observed, both disappointed and a little relieved.

There wasn’t much else to be found: some arrowheads, a mess of beads that could once have been part of a necklace or other charm, and what looked to be a shell, once polished clean. That was a small surprise. Shells would have to have come from a large body of water, or even the ocean, and there was nothing like that for miles. Even the Ponyville Lake, which as far as she knew didn’t have any clams, was a day’s unimpeded travel at a good canter. It must have come from the ocean. Twilight resolved to try and identify the species later, once she got back home.

Lastly, she’d found, buried next to the ancient pony, what looked to be a small skeleton. She’d assumed it to be a rat at first, but Fluttershy had quickly identified it as the remains of a rabbit. Given the position it was in, it had either been buried under the pony or with it. A pet, perhaps?

Simply fascinating!

She took notes long into the night, including sketches and other observations. Gradually her friends went to sleep, all except Pinkie Pie, who sat silently a few hooves away. Eventually Twilight finished, slowly lowered the capstone back in place, and covered the grave again. She kept the alicorn figure, the shell, and two of the arrowheads. She was tempted to take everything she’d unearthed, but decided that what she had was more than enough.

It was her first archaeology find! Her first academic discovery!

Pinkie Pie helped move enough dirt to cover it up again and when that was done, she closed her eyes. Grass started to grow, swiftly covering up the disturbed cist and returning it to a natural state. In a few minutes, it was as if no one had dug there at all. Throughout it all, she normally hyperactive pink pony acted unusually sedate and somber.

Then, all done, she gave Twilight a big grin and trotted off to her sleeping bag.

Twilight wasn’t far behind. Already, this little expedition of theirs had been more than she’d ever imagined! She’d forgotten all about the dangers and worries of camping deep in Everfree forest, her spirits riding high. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

- - -

The next morning they approached the castle ruins.

They weren’t alone, either. Just like the Cutie Mark Crusaders had indicated, there was a small detachment of Royal Guard camped a short distance from the ledge that separated the castle from the forest nearby. The bridge that normally spanned the chasm had been cut, preventing anyone but pegasus ponies from crossing. Celestia’s guardsponies had set up a cordon around the area, and their camp was fortified by stakes and magical wards.

No sooner had the six mares caught sight of it, than they saw the guards come under attack. Black pony shapes swooped in from above, harrying the other pegasus fliers in such numbers that many were also free to molest the unicorns and Earth pony guards on the ground. Other dark ponies rushed the perimeter, climbing over stakes and suppressing magical defense wards with dark magics. They swarmed into the harried Royal Guards, producing a wild melee.

Immediately, Twilight’s friends turned to her for direction.

She could only stand there, stunned by what she saw. It took a moment for the situation to sink in, and with it, for her to notice that everyone was looking at her. Even Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the ones she’d expected to be the first to rush in, were waiting for her to say something. In fact, those two still looked eager, and their impatience was clearly growing behind their narrowed eyes.

‘I’m the party leader, right?’ she remembered, and nodded to herself.

“Ah. Okay!” Twilight thought quickly, planning out what they had to do. “Dash. Help the pegasus guards clear the air. Fluttershy, help her and heal the other flyers. Rarity, Pinkie Pie, you’re with me. We’re going to take out the enemy unicorns. I think they’re suppressing the guardian spells, and we need them back up. Applejack, you need to stick close and protect us. Spike, when we start using spells; I need you to find someplace safe so you can watch our backs. Got it?”

A chorus of acknowledgment followed -

“Then let’s go!” Twilight yelled, and they broke into a full run.

Within moments, the Elements of Harmony dove into the battle.