This story is a sequel to The Dusk Guard Saga: Rise
"Viking ZX has pride in the fact that he can throw his readers into a ride." —PCaRG
"... an exhilarating romp that leaves you guessing half the time and keeps you thrilled throughout." —PaulAsaran
"... you’ll enjoy this one." —City of Doors
Blade Sunchaser is a griffon on the run.
Seven days ago she was the bodyguard of two of the wealthiest railroad magnates in Equestria. One day after that she was in a jail cell.
She didn’t stay there for long. She’s got a job to do, a job with a payoff bigger than any she’s ever earned before. All she needs to do is track down two stolen bits of crystal and bring them back to her employer. Stolen bits last seen being taken north, past Equestria’s furthest borders, into the lawless wasteland known as the Ocean of Endless Ice. A haven of ice dredgers, criminals, and pirates ripe with violence, danger, and dark secrets. But for this kind of payoff, the danger is nothing. She’ll face anything, go anywhere, and do whatever it takes to see her mission through.
Even start a war ...
Book II of The Dusk Guard Saga
Epic Fantasy
Equestrian Map of the Ocean of Endless Ice
Official Series Timeline at [url=https://www.fimfiction.net/group/204855/the-dusk-guard-saga/thread/127607/the-dusk-guard-saga-timeline]TDG Group Forums
Can be found on TV Tropes at The Dusk Guard Saga’s page (Page outdated)
Cover art by Midnight Sonare
Alpha and Beta read by Siers, Raptra, and Jorlem.
If you encounter what you think are typos in the story, PM them rather than clogging the comments feed with them.
Author’s note: From time to time you may encounter a hotlink in the text. These hotlinks are background themes and can be clicked or passed over at your own choice. It is recommended that for maximum enjoyment beforehand, make sure that your volume settings on YouTube are at a comfortable level and make use of Ctrl+Shft+Clicking or the middle mouse button to open the song in a new tab, where it will play automatically without your involvement.
Or just don’t click on them until later. They are an entirely optional experience, and can be passed over without incident.
New Dusk Guard! Eeeeeeeee! Sadly I must wait till I'm home as my lunchbreak is nearly over and work frowns on me reading Ponyfics during business hours. Booo.
And here. We. Go.
Somehow a cult existed for a thousand years to try and resurrect Sombra, and has gone under the radar for that long. That's giving me a Diablo feel. The cursed artifact of doom lying around fits well into canon, which is a thing that has always bothered me. At least the frogurt wasn't cursed this time around. Not sure what to make of the griffin couple adventure duo, but we'll see where that takes them. Gut feeling says Daring will make an appearance in the story, what with the Indiana Jones vibe I'm getting. Wonder what's the story behind Luna, Derpy and her kid, unless I missed something..
Woo, something to read between calls at work!
Hey look, I'm done reading it (the currently only 3 chapters)! It only took about an hour! That's pretty dang good.
Also, look! My prediction about the bar fight was correct! Looks like it was heavily edited though.
That AAR needs to be fleshed out more, but I guess it'll do.
Can't remember Nimbus from the earlier stories, but then again, it's been a while.
Odd dissonance of Blade's mentality. Likes honorable fighting, yet broke out of jail to do a job. Wonder what for and for who that would make her do so.
PROPERTY DAMAGE!
Can't read this till after work. But once I'm off....
The cumulative AAR is hilarious. Here's hoping that it'll expand and be detailed when, not if, she does more significant misdeeds.
6047510
If you recall in Dusk Guard: Rise the point when the team went to investigate the crystal caverns, but were stonewalled by the Royal Guard commander who showed them no respect, wouldn't let them do their job, bungled his own attempts at investigating, made the researchers wait out in the rain, and was subsequently tossed out and reprimanded by Steel, that's Nimbus.
6047485 no one can say Blade doesn't know how to make an impression, in every sense of the word.
6048330
Maybe not always in the best way either. Either I'm wrong about those footers, but I'm pretty sure she has broken a lot of laws...
6048337
Well, to be fair, consider what laws they may be. For example, if fighting someone counts as a charge of assault and battery because it's against the law, than fighting five attackers and beating them down counts as five broken law incidents. But this depends on where you are and what the laws are too, so the numbers get interesting depending on where you are and who's in charge, too.
Mostly it's just for fun, though.
6047547
I'm pretty sure that when those numbers start to climb, you'll be able to look back at the chapter and go "Yup, that was that."
6048370
True, but it's still a lot of infractions, regardless. I mean, at the end of ch. 2 it's 48 laws broken. That's no small amount.
EDIT:Hey Viking, it's being featured. Pretty impressive for a first day.
Congrats on the feature, great to see the story there on day 1.
6049112
Thanks!
Hmm.... disappearing wound? Sounds like magic...
'Obligatory Borderlands reference comment'
Does she have Wolverine-like healing abilities? Did the blown-up battery do that to her?
Also, it'd be interesting to know what Hunter has planned.
6047452 griffon couple? It looked like one was a griffon, and the other an earth pony.
I meant to mention this before but I have to admit here you seem to be setting a trend of having a good moment with the guards outside Celestia's, or Luna's quarters in your prologues.
Had the grand expectations of the business going on inside in Rise, and here you almost give two a heart attack I think at the end. That or this happens more often than I might think.
And thanks for the note, it was time very well spent
Well, this is definitely shaping up to be an adventure. Now if it's finished....why do we only have 3 chapters to read???
6050483
Posting schedule. New chapters go up Tuesdays and Fridays.
double comma
Otherwise, this looks to be fun
6050581 Okay
Griffons have G names. This one is clearly a changeling.
i.imgur.com/fIvet.png
And here we go! It seems we are off to an excellent start.
So we have a unicorn-supremacist cult that worships Sombra. And they have devices that can transmute their magic to act like feeelthy mud pony magic. I guess magical Bane venom is rather hard to say no to.
I love the archaeologist duo. They're such a cute couple! It also helps that I can really see their passion and enthusiasm for their work. I wonder if hippogriffs are a thing in this universe...
And Hunter, what in the wide, wide world of Equestria did you do?!
The cumulative damage count is reminding me of the ghostbusters platformer. "Nice shootin, Tex!"
It's been awhile since I got on fimfic, and this'story's the first I'm reading after the literature break.
My memory's still sharp though. (Spolier) I clearly remember this scene from one of your writing guides. Won't say which though, that wouldn't be fun, would it?
And speaking of which, how long has this fic been on your mind?
6053997
Hahaha, yeah, that was a stealth teaser that very few picked up on (there's a lot of people who read my guides but don't read my fics ... go figure).
And I've had this in mind since ... well, before I was even halfway done with Rise. This has been in the works for a while, along with the rest of the saga!
6054081
Chekov's plot, go figure
. You've had this planned out for quite a bit didn't you.
So Blade's been magically augmented in ways she doesn't understand, including the abilities to shrug off magic and to regenerate from wounds at an alarming rate.
Just who are you working for, Sunchaser? (I kinda forget.
)
6049435
Can't we just go Beyond the Borderlands?
Story is looking very promising so far. Looking forward to Blade tangling with a Bruin.
One question, though: what keeps those boats floating above the ice?
6049227
I literally can't process the amount of sarcasm required to respond to this comment.
Like, seriously, dude. The magic on her was so not-subtle that people not reading the story figured that out.
6047510
She went to jail on her honour, though. If I had to guess, whatever this is, it's a result of a pre-existing debt she has to pay- she didn't choose this job, it chose her, and for whatever reason, it would harm her honour more to NOT do this job than to do it.
6048318
Thanks for the refresher. 'preciate it.
6048393
I may or may not have been spoiled by Arad's own AARs for his missions. Might I suggest these:
1) Most expensive crime/law-broken
2) Most frequent crime/law-broken
3) Notable crime/law-broken of the chapter
6055847
Figured as much, just tossing the question into the air. Possible blackmail involved?
6054227
Pretty much from day one, actually. Some of the finer details have been worked out along the way, but this has been a work of years. Someday, provided I can keep earning enough from writing to stay at it, the whole saga will be done!
Great chapter! I'm starting to suspect what it is that Hunter did. Spotted a typo, as well; when Hain is talking about where the cult hangs out, he says "Ese" instead of "Use".
This may or may not be a mistake.
Maybe it should be someone? Since it could have been another sapien instead of a pony? Just a thought.
There better be more laws broken next time!
6059339
It's not. He's speaking about ponies, in a town populated mostly by ponies, and he knows this package came from Equestria, so it's correct in all three senses.
In General: This is why it's a better idea to PM what may or may not be typos/oversights. Because if it's not, then it just clogs the comments and fills them up with stuff not related to the story. I'm starting to see Hoopy's preference for this request now.
6059390
Still such a newbie.
Oo! Didn't know that.
6059422
It's kind of a new thing, tbh, still catching on, so don't let it worry you. I've seen one or two other authors make the request and I was like "Hey, that makes sense." And then when I had to reply to a question on whether or not something is a typo (like what you posted) I thought "You know, I'm going for it," and added it to the story descrip. Hopefully it'll keep the comments cleaner and more tightly focused.
To be fair, if you wanted to talk with others in the comments about why Hain had used the word "somepony" that would be entirely justifiable in a comments section.
Google translate may be awful for grammar, but it's pretty nice to get another level of spicy plot tidbits from translating Griffonish. Turns a little bit of the mystery into intrigue.
Now, call me dippy, but it looks to me like Hunter did a little favor for his long-time friend. And it also looks like he's gonna regret that sooner or later. Most likely sooner when he gets a load of that bill. My prediction here is that we'll see the Dusk Guard take action some time around the end of the first fourth of the story, just in time for the first major plot shift. Time to reread the side-stories to see how they've been fairing while Blade gets herself feathers-deep in cultists!
As for Blade, talk about a radical choice to make her a protagonist--'scuze me, the protagonist--of at least a large portion of this tale. Left turn, no slowing down! I gotta make sure to have a tab open for rollicking action music whenever she appears in a chapter. I suspect her employer is the super-secretive informant who helped Equestria out with their little bug problem, since Mint is busy going nuts in the Badlands and Wesker--I mean Radiant is looting a dumpster somewhere.
Nice touch blowing up a train at the beginning after they were such a big plot element in the last book.
Nicely written, as usual. And I definitely liked the interaction between Blade and Nimbus. One's a guard, and the other is a mercenary, but which is the real bad guy?
A few errors did creep in, though:
You're missing one or two words: "to look out (of) the window.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't the word be "flare"?
It looks like like "he" should be a "the".
That should be either "should've" or "should have". Same issue appears later:
That should either be "pegasus Guards" or "Guard pegasi".
You're missing an "as" before "it decoupled".
There should be an apostrophe at the end of "fellows".
Either delete the "the" or add an "of" before it.
Given that Blade's employer specifically sent her after this crystal and seems to be able to pay well, I'm thinking that one of the Princess, perhaps Celestia, is the mysterious benefactor.
6062319
As requested in the story descriptions, please PM error observations.
Thank you for the story !!!!!!
As to comments to this chapter: I am a bit boggled - why did not they chase her ?
"They carried no jurisdiction on the Ocean, nor did they have any authority to break the centuries long line that had been drawn between the two lands’ borders." that kinda makes no sense to me.
If Ocean is lawless territory and it is not claimed by any force - it should mean that the border is pretty much virtual. And while guard would not go there willingly out of boredom or such - in my opinion they would do a short raid to catch someone who harmed several of them (if not killed outright by explosion). Or at least they would try to chase her for some time. Even if there are some political matters like 'we could not go there, because other states could react poorly' - in such wild zone it would mean more 'we will not go there further that one day flight' or 'we will have to drop chase if she reaches some settlement', imho.
As offtopic - when do you expect Colony to be published ?
I wonder what a hain is... Is it a traitor? A deserter? A coward? A nerd?
Hmmm.... Did someone help blade there at the end? Pink residue around the wound... Then vanishes leaving the wound in a comfortable state?
Anyway, I am all the more exited to read the next chapter.
Phone logged
I've had my suspicions on who Blade is working for... This puts more support to those thoughts. This is already exciting and were not even at the best part yet. Not even close.
Somehow I don't think any skeleton crew on the ship will be safe…
Assuming there is a skeleton crew.
Also, Al was probably raised by zebras. If not, then he stayed there a decent amount of time.