111 - Gnolls, on my Train?
Spike and Applejack clashed instantly with the shaggy combatants, keeping them from getting through the door as Twilight wheeled on them. She reared on her hind legs and spread her hooves wide, "Begone, in the name of harmony!"
A thunderous crashing came down as the room beyond the door became lost in a dazzling rainbow of colors, intricate and orderly. The gnolls howled in agony, many of them collapsing to the ground under the prismatic assault. When the color faded, the numbers had fallen sharply in favor of Twilight's party.
Applejack sent one flying onto the pile of his brothers just in time for Rainbow to squeeze past her and enter the battle with lashing hooves. "You didn't have a chance from the start," mocked Rainbow as she boxed one staggering on its feet to the ground.
Spike glanced towards Twilight, "How'd you do that? We didn't bring the Elements with us, they're back at the Tree."
Twilight let her friends mop up the remaining gnolls as she looked to Spike, "Apparently, wielding harmony is not an unknown concept here in Everglow. It's a very complicated spell, but I've gotten it down." She pointed in the room with the defeated gnolls, "As you can see from my first field testing of it. It doesn't harm ponies that hold harmony close to their heart, or cause property damage."
Soft gave a strong thumbs up, "You really know how to clear out a room, Twilight." She dashed ahead to tend to a minor cut on Applejack, though the battle was won without any significant injury. "If they knew we were on the train, they would have stayed home."
Rainbow was already quickly nudging fallen gnolls around, looking for gems. "Over here, Spike."
Spike hurried over, applying skilled fingers to the looting process and adding the haul to his backpack, to Rainbow's delight.
Soft sighed a little, "I hope everyone else made it out OK."
Applejack nodded, "That Sonata was a mighty curious pony, but she don't deserve to go like that. Let's get to the front so we don't join her."
The windows in the room suddenly shattered. Huge leathery creatures swung in, wearing riveted hide armor bolted directly to their flesh. They reached for the ponies with great clawed hands, mouths open wide with crooked but deadly-looking teeth.
Twilight suddenly projected a bubble around herself as she shied away, "I don't think they're ready to give up yet..."
Sonata picked herself up off the uneven floor. "Lex?" she called, looking around. She couldn't see much. There was smoke in her nose, and she felt battered. She tried to gather her wits. Everything dropped, then started banging around. Lex did... something. It was dark and cold, but she was alive. Where is he? She shook herself out and moved for the spot of light she could see, picking her way through the twisted wreckage.
A soft cry caught her attention. She turned to the left. There it was again. She put her hooves to a panel of metal and heaved with all her might, slowly pulling it up and to the side, revealing a weakly-wailing mare. "Hey there!" She was happy to see anyone at all, but the mare was less happy. She was hurt, badly.
"Help me, please," she begged. "I can't feel my legs."
Sonata nodded a little, glancing around as she heard other muffled sounds. "I, uh, OK..." She grabbed the mare by the collar and dragged her towards the light, emerging onto the mountainside. Sonata could see the whole train, or what was left of it. Most of it had fallen off the track, and it looked badly crumpled. She set the mare down on the rocky soil, "You gonna be OK?"
The mare nodded weakly before pointing back inside, "There were others in the car with me. Please, if you can save any of them..."
Sonata took a slow breath as she trotted back and forth a moment. A lot of ponies needed her help, and she had no idea where she was anymore, besides by a train track. This isn't what her escape to Equestria was supposed to be like at all! She stomped a hoof on the ground with a grunt, then trotted back into the wreckage, "Hello? Anyone out there?"
She thought she saw a flash and pulled aside a broken panel to reveal a stallion that hadn't made it. She turned her head away from the badly broken body and moved on with a little sniffle, "This is so uncool." Suddenly she had a small presence wrapped around her leg. She squeaked and fell back onto her haunches, looking down to see a small furry figure with wings attached to her. It had a long thin tail that was equally fuzzy. "Hello?"
A feline face looked up at her. The young purrsian, a kitten, gave a thin smile, "Mommy's gone."
Sonata glanced around, "Where did she go to?"
The face fell a little, "Away."
Sonata's mind put it together and her own face fell, "Oh. That totally sucks. Come on." She grabbed the purrsian by the neck and put him on her back, "If you see anyone, let me know. We're the rescuers."
Being given a task other than survival or grief seemed to agree with the kitten, and they picked their way through the wreckage together. It was going to be a long day, but Sonata didn't mind the company at all.
Applejack grunted as dirty claws tore at her. "These fellas are a mite bit tougher than the others," She shouted out, locked in a deadly melee with the boarders. A flash of light and power made the creature in front of her flinch, but push ahead, not entirely impressed by Spike's contribution.
Rainbow looked around with a bit of a panic, "Every time I knock this one over, he just gets back up again!" Even as she said it, a hand with sharp claws reached for her. She lashed out a hoof, knocking the creature to the floor again, but for how long?
Twilight flashed with power as a thin stream of acid sprayed the downed creature. It hissed, and soon stopped struggling, "Go help AJ," ordered Twilight, "I'll take care of finishing them off."
The hulking combatants seemed to hear Twilight and shoved past Applejack to get at her. Applejack knocked one into the wall for the slight of ignoring her, lowering her hind legs as she shouted, "Here they come!"
Spike ducked under a lunging claw and began to tear at one to keep it away from Twilight, but Twilight had her own plans. When one reached for her, she vanished in a lavender distortion, only to reappear on the other side of Applejack. "They know I can put them down."
Rainbow smirked, "That means they're scared." She brought down a rain of pain in the form of fast-moving hooves on one as it tried to get to Twilight, "And they should be!" One of them lunged for Rainbow even as she stood prideful, digging its claws into two different legs and pulling them apart, "Ow ow OW, get it off!" Applejack brought her hooves down on its back, knocking it to the floor under Rainbow just before acid stilled its thrashing.
"Don't go counting them out yet," said Spike as he rent one into so many parts, though they still quivered in their own piles in a fashion that made his stomach turn a little, "Yuck..."
Despite Spike's words, most of the fight had been knocked out of them. With the numbers turned against them, there was little these creatures, fierce as they were, could do before their united front. The last hit the ground, bathed in Twilight's acid as life fled it.
"Aw yeah," said Rainbow just before she winced. Soft let her healing flow freely, soothing the hurts those dirty claws left behind.
"I'm just about out," she warned, "I can't do it forever you know."
Twilight softly snorted, "Would that you could, but you did well, everypony did."
Rainbow gave a little giggle of triumph as Spike found some coins in their pockets. "Are you sure we can't, you know, keep fighting these guys? We'll get my wing back and have some extra to get something fancy."
Soft rolled her eyes, "There's only so many of them, Dash. They're not just, you know, popping out of some hole for you to get money."
Rainbow stuck out her tongue, "A mare can dream. Let's get up to the engine already."
Applejack moved to the fore with Spike. She paused on the way to ruffle Soft's hair, "Ya did good. Shoot, wish we had someone s'good at patching up back when we were saving Equestria all those other times."
They pushed open the door between cars and and arrived in the engine car. Before they could rush through the airlock style room, Soft held up a hand and moved up on the door quietly. She pulled it open just a crack and peeked through before letting the door pull itself shut.
"What'd you see?" asked Twilight with a tilted head.
Soft gestured towards the front, "One big gem gnoll banging on a door. It looks closed off."
Applejack raised a brow curiously, "Twilight, maybe this one's the boss. Think we can reason with 'em?"
Spike raised a hand, "I'll try!"
Twilight took half a step back, "You? Are you sure?"
Spike nodded his head, "I'm sure, and if things get ugly, I'll keep him busy. Better than letting you get jumped on."
Soft frowned softly, "Spike, you're not just a wall for us to use."
Spike gave a thumbs up, "I'm a heroic wall, and I'm going in." He slid the door open and stepped inside, "Hey."
The gem gnoll was indeed larger than the others. The great beast spun around to face Spike with a snarl, "What are you doing here?"
Spike shrugged softly and dug out one of the many gems they'd looted, "I heard you were looking for these, thought we'd have a little talk?"
The gnoll's brow raised, "You have my attention... I am Ruby Finder." He gestured over his vast collection of rubies sewn into his fur, "As you can see. What's your name, dragon?"
Spike smiled brightly, "Spike, at your service. Why are you banging at that door?"
The gnoll frowned, "Supposed to stop the train and get loot off, but the driver locked himself in!"
Spike shrugged, "Nah, no point. All your boys already jumped off the train. Boy, what will they think when they realize their boss was the only one still scared to jump?"
He blinked, "What? Even the trolls?!" His ears twitched, listening for something for a moment, "Blast it all! Forget stopping the train. Ruby Finder will not be known as a coward!"
Spike held up a finger, "Well, I could fly you off the train, nice and safe, for a price."
Ruby tilted his head then, "What price?"
Spike pointed at Ruby, "Just a few of those. Only fair, right?"
Ruby looked like he had been slapped across the face, "My rubies! No. You take coins." He fished out a sack of coins and hurled it at Spike, "Now get me off this thing."
Spike put the bag away, giggling internally as he moved up to Ruby and hefted him up. Ooof, he was pretty heavy, but not enough to stop him from gaining some altitude. They zipped out the airlock, practically knocking aside his friends on their way out. Spike dropped Ruby off beside the train, then zipped back to the train that had sped past. Fortunately, Spike was faster than the train and soon they were reunited.
Rainbow snorted softly, "We could have thrashed him. It would have served him right for what he did, and all those rubies woulda been ours too."
Twilight shook a hoof, "We're not here to do that. I'm very proud of you, Spike, for handling that without violence." She strode into the room and gently rapped on the metal door. "They're gone, you can come out now."
There was no reply. Applejack shook her head, "Reckon he can't even hear us through that thing. Is that solid metal?"
Soft shrugged softly, "Well, I think it's all clear at least. He'll come out when the train pulls into the next station."
Twilight gave a half-smile, "Let's go back to the dining car. I hope Sonata's OK."
Spike raised a brow, "And Lex?"
Applejack snorted softly, "And Lex. Strange fella that one."
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Well, he's dead, Jim. Find another one.
Huh. Usually morally or ethically dependent spells are divine in nature. I'm surprised Twilight was able to pull that off.
"Escape to Equestria"? Interesting choice of words. It's probably just Sonata seeing her community service as another cage. Probably.
Still, the way she's reacting to the crash definitely speaks in her favor.
Sorry, Dash. This isn't that kind of RPG. You can't just farm gold, even if you put ranks in Profession.
Pinkie Pie may not be here, but the diplomancy is still strong with this party. Good for Spike! Still, I have to wonder who hired these gnolls, and why. That will likely come to light soon, but for now, I don't have much to work with.
Hm... Spike missed a chance to be a douchebag and say "I could fly you off the train." leaving off the idea that he's going to do it safely and simply toss him off like everyone else after extracting payment.
I think it's probably for the best he didn't, though.
5728994 Spike's a good guy, er, dragon, more often than not.
5728960 It's true, but Blast of Harmony is an Everglow specific spell that works like Order's Wrath, with more rainbows, and usable by wizards.
5729024
He's a guy-dragon! Guy is species-agnostic.
5729028 Nothing a girdle of sex changing won't fix!
5729036
But then Soft Mane would be disappointed.
Maybe.
The "Elements," Spike. They have a capital "E." For that matter, so does the "Tree."
Capitalize "she" there.
Change her name to "Rainbow's" there.
Their teeth are "deadly-looking."
I'd change that last part to "but she was alive."
She's a "weakly-wailing" mare.
You need the past-tense here. "Most of it had fallen off of the track."
Her hooves are "fast-moving."
Capitalize "before."
5729111 All fixed up, thanks for spotting those. What did you think?
5729175 Well, the remaining combat with the gem gnolls (and the surprise trolls) was good, but largely seemed like a mop-up operation. Even with the trolls acting as "shock troops," they really didn't seem to have much of a chance. The final fight with the "boss" was in-character for how the group would have acted, but still felt like it just sort of fizzled out. Also, didn't one of the gnolls in the last chapter (the one that fled with the bottles of booze) say that the boss was a "she"?
One also has to wonder why Spike hasn't thought of flying back to the wreckage, or at least checking out the roof...though I suppose that can wait for the next chapter, since things were concluding here. That and by now the train is surely several miles away.
Also, interesting stuff with Sonata! Dealing with survivors is always a heroic light to be in.
5729187 As you said. Though Spike is faster then the train, the train never stopped moving and is pretty far past the wreck at this point, so staying with Twilight was the priority.
Sonata will get her chance to shine on her own, maybe. Where did Lex get off to in all that?
Hope Lex is okay, I get a chuckle out of his blant racism, cuz he's gonna get the shit kicked out of him sooner or later if he keeps it up.
Also happy to see some diplomacy, it's more interesting than violence!
5728960 Profession (Gold Farmer)?
And I don't like that sort of diplomacy. There was a little too much actually being on the bad guy's side and not enough pretending to be on her side long enough to lift her 400 feet in the air before dropping her.
Wand of Cure Light Wounds, my little cleric. Or Infernal healing, which will pay out nearly twice CWL's average if you're patient.
*checks Rainbow's stats* Dang. Someone min maxed. I suppose if she wants flight back she can always retrain to Kineticist(Occult Classes Playtest Yay!) and go with air. Then she could shoot fly around shooting lightning from her eyes and thunder from her ass.
5730086 Pegasi can produce thunder with their ass without fancy classes if they're eating right.
5730092
Shame.
Though I think the class might be handy in the future. The Aether(telekinetic) branch of the Kineticist class is basically "Hey, you're a Unicorn!". Three simple abilities and you can move 100 lbs per level with enough finesse to perform any skill check.
Or rip off parts of a house and throw them through other houses. It's all good.
5730238 The book isn't fully released, nor have I given it a deep reading(or any reading), so I'll give it a pass for now.
CL 0.5 battles are useful for farming and filling long trips without using up too much resources, but drop too far, 0.2 to 0.1, and XP etc falls off to 0. which means no more doing like Disney, and playing Lemmings.
Should probably be "in" since she's looking for people in the wreckage
What's cuter than Sonata? Sonata with a kitten, that's what.
I don't usually bother Applejack about grammar, but I think you meant "mite". Since mite means "small amount" the bit is unnecessary.
rent
Just run around in the long grass for a while, I'm sure you'll find something to fight eventually.
A mare
One "hefted" too many
Or, maybe there's nobody driving the train and it's going to keep going full speed until you reach the end of the track(which pointlessly goes right up to the edge of a cliff because that would increase the suspense). Nah, I've probably just seen too many movies...
5730238 I like the idea of using a house as a ranged weapon
5730633
With the right picks, you can use yourself as a ranged weapon. Or the monk. Really, it's best to hurl the monk. Fun for the whole family!
5730626 Fixes applied!
5730638 "Toss me, just don't tell the elf."
Well, she can't use her freaky mind-control powers to find a way out of the wilderness or set broken bones, but there's always more monsters waiting behind every tree.
Just took a look at the stat sheets for the characters, and now I'm realizing either those muggers had to have quite a few levels on him, or Spike had to have like 3 HP left after the pit fights for them to take him like they did, but damn, seriously, Spike's stats are freaking good, and he's a powerhouse on the battlefield. He's very much the tank of the group, and it's only gonna get better as he hits those age categories.
There's a reason Dragons in D&D and Pathfinder are feared and respected: they can whup yo ass 20 ways to Sunday without trying. I don't believe the party realizes how lucky they are to have him around, now more than ever.
5730968 Two medium level rogues in a surprise round can dole out a lot of damage to an already wounded Spike and a stupidly-charging Rainbow Dash.
5732611 RD I can understand. Spike's Flat-footed AC, though, is no joke. How many d6s of Sneak Attack were they packing? Around the 5-to-7 mark? I suppose with flanking, they would have racked up enough subdual to take his lowered hp, cuz that poison they were using certainly wasn't gonna do the trick. Not with that Fort save he's got (unless he rolled a Nat 1).
I do like playing Rogues, though. They can pump out some crazy mad damage if played properly.
5732678 It doesn't help that the dwarf he fought had a con-damaging poison on his axe, hence Spike's reaction and whine about it, and that Soft is still an underleveled healer that can't really keep up when the damage gets intense, and RD needed most of the attention. It was a perfect storm.
5732699 Ah, I didn't even catch that part. I figured it was some sort of magic weapon, possibly a Dragon Bane weapon (but that would be rather specific and unlikely), or one with the Vicious ability (I wouldn't put it past a berserker to use one of those). Con poison, though? Yeah, definitely playing dirty pool. Lowered max HP and Fort saves, meaning Spike had to have Nat 1'd that initial save for it to have even affected him (unless Pathfinder/Ponyfinder has way stronger poisons than 3.5e; those save DCs were laughable to someone that has Fort saves like Spike, even at their strongest).
Oh well, it's all said and done. Would Dash having lost her wing count as some form of persistent Ability Damage? I would think that at least a Restoration spell would be needed, something Soft Mane isn't far enough to learn yet (I see she has Lesser Resto, but yeah, that ain't gonna cut it). Or would a stronger spell (like Regeneration) be needed?
I've been a bit of a fan of hybrid classes like AJ's Magus, and others like Duskblade and Warmage, as well as mixing up classes with good multiclassing. Never the outright best at all the things they can do, but the versatility and timely application of various abilities can make them extremely dangerous. AJ will be taking the term Bad Apple to a whole new level pretty soon.
5732784 It's a missing limb, simple as that. Regeneration would fix it right up, which would cost shy of a thousand gold to get a cleric to throw at her. If they had the money, it would be a painful but short lesson, but they didn't, so she's really had her face rubbed in her mistake.
5732794 True. Also, IIRC, didn't they leave the wing at the pit anyways? Would probably have to grow a new one from scratch. If RD feels unbalanced now, I'm sure that experience will be even moreso for her.
At any rate, really enjoying this story. Making me look forward to getting that Ponyfinder book in my hands. I know a couple of my Brony friends are gamers as well, so I'm sure I could convince them to give it a shot. I probably would have to dust off my GM hat, though. I rarely actually get to play because I'm usually the one running the show.
Aggro the whole battlefield, then teleport behind your allies so the enemies have to invite attacks of opportunity to get at you. Kudos to Twilight for using strategy, I expected her to be the first to use her mind in battle.
5732884 Twilight is nopony's fool! Sometimes.
5732906 She's a clueless genius. She's really good at thinking, but doesn't always know what to think about.
Know what I'm thinking? Spike needs to learn Robilar's Gambit. Imagine how much more damage he could deal out with that.
Yes, I start to optimize characters after a while. Spike is probably their best melee DPS in the group, but he can easily be so much better at it.
Optimizing a Dragon with class levels. Not even close to some of the more heinous things I've done as a GM. However, plenty of my players have both loved and hated me for doing such things. Makes games fun when the boss starts pulling out some of the same tricks players use.
5732784 http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/afflictions/poison/deathblade
5733047
Deathblade costs 1,800 gp a dose, which is a pretty heafty chunk of the prize; the dwarf wasn't there for the money, was he?
(This could be a consequence of Dashy having pissed him off with the midget comment...)
8084243 Dashy had it coming, that adorable braggart.