Pathfinder Ponies

by terrycloth

Song of Vengeance

Travelling back through the pass was much faster without a caravan to escort. The party discussed various magical methods of speeding their travel, but they weren’t in any particular hurry to get anywhere, and if the orc from the fortress didn’t snitch, the pass was one of the last places that any pursuers would look. Assuming there were any pursuers in the first place.

The travel was also rather pleasant – the pass was still mostly clear of wildlife, even if the patrols had been recalled to Rally, and the intelligent threats had been vanquished. There were no monsters to harass them as they made their way through the mountains, and each night, even in the coldest heights and the worst weather, Fluttershy was able to summon up a zone of magical plant life that kept them warm and safe. It even had magic berries that kept them from needing to dip into any of their supplies.

Still, even without hurrying they were making good time. Midday on the second day they passed the deserted garrison – giving it a wide berth, since they had no reason to think there was anything worth stealing left inside – and as the sun started to set on the third day, they approached the eastern fort, where they’d been held up and asked to attack the changelings.

As they were about to climb up onto the surrounding slopes to sneak past this final obstacle, they noticed that something was amiss – a large caravan of gem ponies, their wagons loaded down with food and other supplies, was camped out outside the garrison walls, and Macintosh and Rainbow Dash could tell from their body language that they were arguing with each other.

“Ah don’t care if they’re holding a rodeo, this ain’t none of our business,” Applejack said.

“This could help us,” Twilight said. “The dragon skeletons are distinctive, but they could easily hide in those wagons, and with the hats of disguise we’ll have no trouble blending in.”

“I think they’d notice if half a dozen new ponies showed up,” Rainbow Dash said.

Twilight shook her head. “We don’t need to hide from them! They’re friends… of sorts. Or at least, they’ll probably be willing to help hide us in return for our protection in bandit territory. And the mine would be a safe place to hide out.”

“The mine is made of highly flammable coal, is under siege from an army of bandits, and has a lich hiding underneath. I’m not sure why you’d consider that ‘safe’,” Rarity said.

“Oooh, are we voting again?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I’m with Twilight. I want to see what’s going on!” She paused. “But I don’t want to hide out in the mine. It’s way too flammable.”

“I suppose there’s no harm in it, if we keep to our disguises,” Applejack said. “Leave the dragons here, hiding. You can whistle ‘em up if you need ‘em.”

As the party approached, disguised as a group of earth ponies and pegasi, with Macintosh an extremely large griffon with a gimpy wing, they could start to make out the argument.

“We can’t just break down the door! We’ll be arrested!”

“Like I’ve been telling you, there’s no one here to arrest us. Look at the walls! They’re deserted!” Sure enough, there was nopony manning the walls, which was definitely against procedure.

“So we camp out here. It’s crazy to go inside – what if whatever got them gets us too?”

“It’s a lot easier for it to get us if we’re sleeping out in the open like idiots!”

“Um, hey, want me to fly up and take a look over the wall?” Rainbow Dash asked.

The two stopped, joining the rest of the caravan gem ponies in staring at the newcomers. Finally, one of them shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

“We’re not giving her a funeral, we’re burning her so she doesn’t come back as an undead,” the other gem pony said.

The first one scoffed. “There won’t even be a body! I bet it sucks her down out of the sky with tentacles. So we’ll just say a few words around the fire…”

Rainbow Dash flew straight up, on guard for any tentacles. A few seconds later, she flew back down, looking slightly ill. Everypony looked at her expectantly.

“They’re dead,” she said. “Just… lying there, dead. No blood, no sign of a fight. And they’re not up and walking around, so it happened recently.”

“Or they’re faking,” Rarity suggested.

“We’d better go in and look around,” Twilight said. “If something’s taking out the garrisons, we need to know what.”

“Don’t see how any of this is our bee’s wax,” Applejack grumbled.

“Then stay here,” Twilight said. “I’m going in.”

“Now hold your horses, I’m with you, Sugarcube. Let me check the door for traps.” Applejack moved up and inspected the door closely, then blinked. “Huh, what do you know.” She took a black crystal out of her thieves’ kit and carefully scraped it across a nondescript section of the door – then swore as it slipped from her teeth and landed in the dust. She picked it up and finished the job. “Eheh. Thought I was in trouble there, but it looks like it was just an Alarm spell. Should be safe to open now.”

Nevertheless, she stood back and let Twilight do the honors.

The dead did not rise to attack when the party entered the fortress, and a quick search of the keep and barracks revealed no sign of life. After Pinkie Pie poked at the bodies and determined that they had been poisoned, Fluttershy’s detect poison spell confirmed that the poison had been delivered in the same way that the changelings at the other garrison had tried to poison the party – the breakfast stew was contaminated with dozens of doses of poison, enough to overwhelm even an orcish soldier’s intestinal fortitude.

“Where are their weapons?” Rainbow Dash asked, as she approached one of the dead soldiers to search him for valuables. “This armor’s trash, but their weapons are just missing. I’m pretty sure the poison didn’t kill their axes.”

“Somepony must have taken them!” Pinkie Pie said. “But there’s no sign of tracks. They must have flown in!”

“Wait, look,” Fluttershy said, floating over to one of the soldiers who’d fallen near the outer wall. “A clawprint? Did griffons do this?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time we ran into a group that hired on with the wrong side.”

“What should we tell them?” Twilight asked, glancing back at the gem pony miners, who were gathered around the gate, but hadn’t gotten up the courage to come through.

“That this ain’t a safe place to sleep,” Applejack said. “There’s that forest off the side of the pass that we slogged through – it should have cover from the air, at least. We can help ‘em set up a hidden camp in there.”

”You want us to what?” one of the gem pony leaders exclaimed. “No way, no how. These wagons wouldn’t make it ten feet off the road, and if we did get into the trees, then what? The griffons come down and ambush us.” He glared at them suspiciously. “You’re with them, ain’tcha.”

“Oh, shut up, you rockhead,” the other one replied. “Do they look like griffons? I mean, ‘cept for the big one, who sure as sugar didn’t go flying around with that wing of his.” He turned to Applejack. “Still, we can’t take these wagons into the forest. We’ll lock ourselves in the barracks ‘till morning. I’m not worried about posion. We’ve got our own supplies.”

“So did they!” Pinkie Pie said.

The gem pony looked slightly taken aback. “We’ll be extra careful,” he said. “Now, you staying with us, or running off and hiding?”

The adventurers looked at each other. “If we stay here, we’re gonna be attacked. Ain’t no maybe about it,” Applejack said.

Twilight glanced to the side, at the cold corpse of the orcish soldier, and lifted her hammer in her magic, setting the butt end of it firmly into the ground at her side. “Good.”

To prepare for the expected ambush, Fluttershy desecrated the courtyard where they’d set out all the bodies. Some of them would likely retain their minds when they arose as undead, and the others would probably at least attempt to defend the keep from intruders. If nothing else, it would make the skeletal dragons more effective if they were fighting close enough to the desecration.

Rarity used her pearls of power to recover and re-cast the Mage Armor spells on herself and Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie mixed up extra doses of False Life, Ablative Barrier, and Communal Delay Poison, although the last would most likely expire before the attack. All of the party’s other defenses were too short in duration to keep active for long enough to matter.

Once that was done, the party found hiding places around the courtyard, and waited for the attack. Instead, just as darkness fell across the land, they heard a song, coming from up in the air, all around. The words were impossible to make out, but it was calming, captivating, and filled them with a sense of peace…

“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash said, focusing on her training and shaking herself out of the trance. “Oh, for pony’s sake! Leucrotta can fly now?” She flew up into the air, picked out one of the songs from the circling creatures, and flew in its direction. As she got closer, the faint moonlight picked out a familiar outline. “Harpies! Everypony, cover your ears!”

Unfortunately, it was too late for most of her friends, who had fallen under the spell of one harpy or another, and in many cases had fallen under half a dozen different harpies’ spells at once. So while several of her friends had taken to the air behind her, Rainbow was alone when several of the creatures focused their attacks on her. One attacked with her bare claws, but while Rainbow twisted out of the way of her strike, the others were able to strike her with their massive battle axes. They weren’t exceptional fighters, but one of them managed to leave a scratch. A small scratch. They were wielding large weapons, but the harpies weren’t really very strong.

Rarity, of course, was not affected by the song at all. Seeing Rainbow, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Applejack fly off into the night – as it happened, mostly in the same general direction – she sent her dragons out to follow her friends, and kill the singing harpies as soon as they came into view. Not having any target for her offensive spells, she cast a mirror image on herself as she headed for the wall.

So Rainbow Dash wasn’t alone for long – the skeletal dragons swooped up next to her, and snapped at the harpies, drawing blood. The empty-clawed harpy almost managed to evade its teeth, and was obviously a far more skilled opponent, so Rainbow focused her attacks on that one, stunning her with her first swing and electrifying her with a second.

But the axe-wielding harpies seemed to multiply, as the circle closed around Rainbow Dash and her friends, and five of them focused their attacks on Sparky II, hoping that a larger target would be easier to hit than Rainbow Dash. Several of them did hit with their axes, but the weapons were not terribly effective against the skeleton, and the harpies were not strong enough to power through the resistance.

Sparky’s claws and fangs, on the other hoof, proved perfectly capable of ripping two of its assailants to shreds. The others quickly fell to Garble, Crackle, and Opal, who’d all been drawn to the same location, following different harpies.

As the bird-women fell in pieces to the mountainside below, the song’s hold weakened, and Pinkie Pie woke, as if from a trance. “What’s – what’s going on?”

“Harpies, dear,” Rarity shouted back from the courtyard, as she channeled negative energy through her glare, trying to curse a harpy flying brazenly overhead. Unfortunately, it managed to shake off the effects, not even pausing in its song.

Rainbow Dash continued to beat up on her target, keeping her stunned and sending more electricity coursing through her chest. It was all she could manage to stay in the air before the griffon’s furious assault, and when Sparky joined in she dodged teeth, and horns, only to zig when she should have zagged, right into one of the skeleton’s claws, which swatted her out of the air. Her body hit the ground with a crunch.

The other skeletal dragons turned to follow the still-hypnotized adventurers, who were flying back towards the surviving harpies, back towards the fort. Garble, Crackle, and Opal shot past Fluttershy and Applejack and engaged the remaining harpies in the air, snapping at them with their fangs.

It was too much -- the harpies ran, flying off into the darkness with desperate speed. They didn’t get far… the skeletal sky dragons were far faster. Only by scattering did any of them escape, the dragons each picking one victim and chasing them down, snapping at them with vicious teeth until they fell.

With the fight apparently over, Rainbow Dash headed back to join her friends in midair. Twilight and Macintosh had also tried to follow, on the ground, but hadn’t been able to get close, since being hypnotized did not give them the ability to fly.

Suddenly, a voice came out of the darkness. “You will not escape my revenge that easily! HOLD!”

Most of the fliers managed to shake off the spell, but Applejack’s wings locked in place, and she dropped like a rock, even bouncing a few times as she rolled a few feet down the mountainside. Below, Macintosh and Twilight were both likewise locked into place.

“Where is he?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking around wildly. “Who did that?”

“Unnatural forces of invisibility, begone,” Fluttershy whispered, and a wave of blue energy flew out from her, washing over an invisible creature – a harpy, but a spellcaster judging by the mirror images surrounding her. She was swooping down towards Twilight Sparkle, a razor-sharp katana drawn and ready to end the unicorn’s life while she stood there, frozen and helpless.

“No way!” Rainbow Dash said, diving after her. “This is the end for you. DIE!” The last word turned into a horrific shriek, then a cone of distorted air emerging from Rainbow’s beak, shot through with lightning.

Pinkie Pie, for her part, took out an infusion, tossed it into the air, and bucked it when it lined up with the target – and a lightning bolt shot out, crackling through the swarm of images.

It wasn’t enough to take the harpy down, and her images distracted Sparky, the only dragon close enough to respond immediately. Rarity climbed to the top of the wall to see what was happening, but was too late to intercede further.

As the party watched in horror – and Sparky snapped at another image – the harpy closed one clawed foot around Twilight’s helmet, and wrenched back her head, exposing her neck. The other foot drew the katana across her throat. Blood spurted into the air, spraying in a black arc across the moonlit rocks, and then Twilight’s body collapsed, neck still pumping, as the harpy hovered in place, holding the severed unicorn head in her free claw. “HA HA HA HA HA! VENGEANCE!”

Sparky bit and clawed at her, destroying her remaining images, and Macintosh, who’d broken free from his paralysis too late, charged and impaled the creature on his lance, sending her flying. Rainbow Dash flew at her, but she twisted aside contemptuously, dodging the griffon’s attack, then ducked under Fluttershy’s crossbow bolt and stepped aside to let Pinkie Pie’s firebomb explode against the mountainside.

Rainbow Dash was caught in the splash, but so was the harpy, and as the fire washed across her, she burst into green flames, and it was a charred and shattered changeling that fell to the ground, still laughing as it died.

“Well,” Rarity said, looking at the sad scene below. “At least that was the last of them, assuming the two drakes that terrorized the pass were the same two changelings that attacked the other outpost. We killed one there, and the other one here, which should tie up that loose end… rather messily, to tell the truth. The poor dear. I’m sure she would have rather died fighting.”

“Fluttershy – can you, I don’t know, put her head back on or something?” Rainbow Dash asked, holding the gruesome trophy in her claws, and offering it to her.

“Um…” Fluttershy said, casting a spell on Twilight’s body to preserve the corpse.

“I can do that, easily enough,” Rarity said. “Do you think I should infect her with Ghoul Fever, to ensure she returns as a… familiar and corporeal undead? We should take her into the fortress – it would be a shame for her to miss out on this Desecration.”

“I really think she’d rather be alive,” Fluttershy said.

“Oh, I’m quite sure she’d be perfectly happy to be undead,” Rarity replied. “Why spend thousands of gold returning her to such a fragile and temporary state?”

“We can ask,” Rainbow Dash said. “Speaking with the dead is easy, if they’re willing. Right?”

"I don't know that spell," Fluttershy said. "We'd have to take her all the way back to Crossroads.”

“Then we take her back to Crossroads. You know she’d rather be alive,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I know no such thing,” Rarity said. “Yes, yes, I’ll admit, she wouldn’t make a very good ghoul, but she does have quite the unique set of armor, no? Between that, and Fluttershy’s Desecration, she would have a reasonable chance of coming back as a Grave Knight.”

“A what?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Oh, it’s a fearsome kind of undead warrior – like a lich that prefers to ‘hit things with other things’, as Applejack put it,” Rarity explained. “Highly resistant to damage, immune to cold, electricity, fire, and most magic… able to fling fireballs around, in fact. Even more difficult to permanently destroy than my dragons. And they radiate a permanent Desecration, at double strength! Mua ha ha ha ha, this is perfect, we must let her rise as a Grave Knight. We must!”

“And if she comes back as a mindless zombie?” Applejack asked, having finally broken free from the paralysis. “It’ll cost twice as much to bring her back, if she doesn’t win the undead lottery.”

“Oh, fine, we can ask,” Rarity said, with a heavy sigh. “But I’m not going to be the one carrying her dead weight.”

A few hours later, the orcish soldiers started to rise from the dead. Rarity identified them as Wights, by their glowing red eyes, and theorized that it was the Desecration that created the appropriate conditions. Most of them retained their previous identities, and Fluttershy was able to help several of the others with her Threnodic Command. The four that she could not help were still intelligent undead, but had lost all their memories. They agreed to continue to serve the army – or at least, the stronger Wights – in any way they could, although without most of their previous skill with weapons that would probably be as cannon fodder.

“It’s a shame we never found what happened to your weapons,” Applejack said, carefully not glancing at the bundle of magical axes recovered from the harpies, warpped up in Macintosh’s bedroll and thoroughly hidden. “Maybe if you go find the local harpy’s nest, they’ll still have some of them?”

“It’s of little concern,” Rarity said. “As energy-draining undead, they’ll want new ‘Conductive’ weapons enchanted for their use. Their old axes would be less effective than just attacking with their bare hands.”

In the morning, the party headed onwards quickly. There was no cleric at Black River capable of Raising Twilight Sparkle, so accompanying the caravan was no longer an option – they needed to turn south, towards Crossroads. Around the midpoint of their journey, they came to the small inn.

“No dead bodies in my inn!” the young crystal pony insisted. “What are you doing, carrying her around? You should be burying her!”

“We’re bringing her back to life,” Rainbow Dash said. “She’s safe, our healer here keeps blessing her body to keep her from rising up.”

“I’m still not letting her inside,” the pony said, stomping a hoof on the porch.

“She can spend the night in the stables,” Fluttershy said. “Rarity can keep an eye on her.”

“Me?” Rarity said.

“You don’t want to leave somepony else in charge of your dragons, do you?” Fluttershy asked. “Besides, you’re the only one immune to the butterflies.”

“Hah, she’s got you there, Daisy Chain,” Applejack said. “Don’t eat too much hay!”

“Laugh while you can,” Rarity grumbled, as she retreated to the stables. “The entrail feast draws ever nearer!”

In the morning, the party headed towards Crossroads, the dry wastes making way for the greener fields of the south. Around midday, they came across a curious structure, that hadn’t been there before. Someone had built a bridge over a small, swampy dip. As the adventurers crossed the bridge –

“There’s no way I’m setting a paw on that thing,” Rainbow Dash said, as she flew over.

As the flying party members flew over the bridge, a troll emerged from the mud, wearing a mud-stained uniform. “Stop! You cross my bridge, you pay!”

Rarity glowered at the brutish creature. “RUN,” she said, eyes flashing.

The troll ran.

Applejack eyed it suspiciously. “Since when do swamp trolls lurk about in the middle of a dry prairie?”

“There’s a swamp,” Pinkie Pie said, peering under the bridge. “Ooh, and a framed certificate!”

Applejack landed, and looked underneath as well. “A what?”

The troll had a framed certificate, declaring ‘Troll’ to be the owner and operator of the ‘North Swamp Bridge’ and licensing him to collect a toll of one silver piece per head from any traveler. There was also a wooden barrel, with large letters on the side reading ‘Mark of Passage – give one to each paying customer’. Inside the barrel were dozens of shiny amulets, made out of a strange blue metal.

While they were investigating this, the troll returned.

Rarity glowered at it again. “Why did you come back? RUN!”

“No!” the troll said, lifting a claw threateningly. “You pay!”

“Here,” Applejack said, tossing a pawful of silver pieces at the troll’s feet before it could attack. “But what are you doing way out here? Who set you up here?”

The troll bent over to take the silver pieces. “Orc,” the troll said. “It say troll need bridge, and build bridge for troll.”

“Did you get a name?” Rarity asked. “Or a description?”

The troll stared at her for a bit. “Orc! Was orc.” He reached under the bridge, and took a bunch of amulets from the barrel, handing one over to each party member. “You wear to cross bridge.”

Applejack looked at the amulets suspiciously, and whispered, “they magical?”

“Yes,” Rarity whispered. “Faint enchantment.”

Applejack scowled. “Then nopony wear ‘em, just use the hat. Troll shouldn’t be hard to fool.”

Rarity carried the real amulets until they were out of sight of the troll, and then the party buried them for safety. “I can’t help but think that we’ve seen these somewhere before,” she said.

“I know! I get the same feeling,” Pinkie Pie said. “But I can’t quite put my hoof on it.”

“Think we should, you know,” Rainbow Dash said, drawing a claw across her throat. “Just so nopony else falls for it.”

“Not until we know what’s going on here,” Applejack said. “No sense alerting somepony we don’t even have a good lead on.”

A bit before nightfall, they reached Crossroads at last, and headed for its temple. The priests there were more than willing to sell all the appropriate services, although one of them recognized the dead unicorn.

“That’s Twilight Sparkle – we have a message for her, and her companions.” The cleric frowned. “What happened to her? Did you see any sign of the others?”

“Invisible assassin!” Pinkie Pie said. “It paralyzed her, and cut off her head!”

“She’d just joined up with us a little bit before,” Applejack said. “If she had friends, well, I guess she was the last.”

The orcish priest gave Applejack a look.

“I don’t think he’s fooled,” Fluttershy said quietly.

“Fine, we’re her friends,” Applejack said. “There really was an assassin, though.”

“The message said to report to the nearest guild hall for questioning about a murder,” the cleric said. “An assassin killed an army captain, and cut off his head. If the assassin is after you as well, that speaks well for your innocence.”

“Uh, yeah,” Applejack said. “You can understand why we don’t want our identity thrown around willy-nilly, though. Right?”

The cleric smiled. “My lips are sealed. For a price.”

Despite the obvious origin of the magical axes as orcish army issue, the party’s status as Adventurers allowed them to sell them to the temple without being questioned about how they came to be in their possession. Applejack volunteered that they’d been recovered from a pack of harpies working for the assassin, just to make sure there was no confusion, and that people didn’t start saying that they’d been fighting the army.

After securing funds, the next step was to cast Speak With Dead, a simple spell that would simulate Twilight’s personality and memories, to answer questions as she would have were she alive, and magically compelled to answer questions. One of the acolytes cast the spell on Twilight’s well-preserved corpse – Rarity had stitched her head back on – and her eyes opened, staring at nothing.

“Twilight? Is that you?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Shh! You only get three questions!” The acolyte warned her, a bit too late.

“Yes…” Twilight croaked. “Oh, Pinkie, it’s so awful here. Please, bring me back. Everything is dark, and tainted. The blackness is trying to devour me… I can’t let it have me!”

The acolyte looked shocked. “That’s – that’s not how the spell is supposed to work.”

“Would you like to come back as a living unicorn,” Rarity asked, ignoring him. She leaned forwards towards her dead friend, grinning, “or would you prefer to save thousands of gold and come back as a fearsome Grave Knight? They’re quite powerful. Immune to cold and –“

“I want to be alive,” Twilight rasped. “If this darkness is the essence of undeath, I want no part of it.”

“Are you sure?” Rarity asked. “Fluttershy could make a nice Desecrated area – outside of town, of course – and you haven’t lived… or, well, died, I suppose… until you’ve experienced Desecration as an undead. It’s quite luxurious. Plus, you’ll feel no fear, or pain… it really is a superior form of existence.”

“No fear, no pain, no guilt, no shame,” Twilight intoned. “I am sure,” she added, answering the question.

With that, the spell ended, and her body became still once more.

“Well, I think it’s pretty clear that she wants to be raised from the dead,” Pinkie Pie said. “Sorry, Rarity.”

Rarity scowled. “Some ponies have no appreciation for the finer things in death.”

Comments

[FanOfMostEverything]

Huh. Not sure how Dash pulled off that pseudo-breath weapon. It was awesome, though. Also, nice to see the dragon skeletons shine. Well, as much as something covered in necromantic slime can.

And that blue clay-metal makes its return. I wonder how that factors into all of this...

It appears that the planar melding is interfering with the afterlife. That's definitely not good. Sorry, Rarity. Negative energy just isn't some ponies' thing.

[terrycloth]

5696863 Dragon Style eventually gives a cone attack, that you can specifically use Elemental Fist with. I thought it was appropriate for a griffon screech.

[WanderingPony]

Rarity is pulling off being undead perfectly.

She's making existing as a damned soul feeding off carrion fabulous, and the thought of her doing this at a table randomly grossing out everyone else is hilarious.