Episode 4.4: Fire in the Night
The marshaled strength of Estel stood before her.
Winter was “wrapped up” for good. Weather teams no longer needed to maintain the intricate patterns above their patch of city to stop snow and chill wind from penetrating and destroying their crops. Not that anypony outside the weather teams in Estel had ever had to deal with the consequences. They had successfully defied the natural order of the seasons and lived to talk about it.
Only a small percentage of her ponies were armored. Armoring all these ponies would have been a waste of precious metal when she hoped not to fight in close quarters anyway.
Every pony before her had a rifle leaning against one of their shoulders, old wood and shiny new metal. They were primitive, single shot, cartriged long-bore weapons that would’ve fit in quite happily during the Civil War, except for the modified trigger and aiming mechanisms. They had to be simple enough that somepony with hooves could use them.
Archive passed through the assembled formations—blocks of a hundred that were further subdivided into fifties, then tens. She passed her six mortar crews, each one six ponies with their vertical-angled cannons. Next came her armored pegasi and unicorns, with sturdy aluminum plates to protect them but no rifles. They would not need them.
Estel had marshaled every pony with the strength and courage to fight. As she stepped up onto a raised platform, she turned to look out at the five hundred mares and stallions they had armed and trained as best they could. A full fourth of their population. Every other pony had been assigned a supporting role. Carrying wounded, treating them, bringing food or ammunition or supplies.
Even now the forges were still hot, the sound of labor continuing through this last, final assembly. The sound of mechanical tools and the steady glow of electric lights now came from the workshop—her tools, stolen from the saddlebag. Those tools had made this possible.
It wouldn’t be enough.
Tom Rhodes already waited on the stage, standing at attention. He straightened, saluted, and five hundred ponies all moved to imitate him. Most lacked his military discipline—their timing was off, their legs moved irregularly. These were minutemen, not master soldiers.
“At ease!” she shouted, and Colonel Rhodes lowered his leg. The assembled ponies did as well. Just a few feet beyond where everypony had lined up, the vast crowds of civilians mobbed, watching with nervous eyes. Two thousand ponies did not take up that much space, really. All of Estel could easily cram themselves into one of the buildings, as indeed they would.
Just behind Alex, the oldest and sturdiest of their structures had been reinforced. New cement barricades surrounded it in rings, gun emplacements and supplies already waiting. Windows were boarded and reinforced. Active shield spells had been worked into the foundation, every protection spell Archive knew and a few more she had invented.
Silence fell in the early evening, aside from the sound of repeated drilling and hammering in the workshop. Archive stepped up to the edge of the stage, straightening and spreading her wings to give herself as much volume as possible.
Magic filled the air around her—her magic. In no place she had ever seen had Archive been so surrounded with the forces of civilization. These ponies had put their trust in her—the promises of their constitution, and the strength of arms of their minutemen. It was a magical strength she had not possessed since she had returned.
“People of Estel!” she shouted, her voice echoing easily over the crowd. “I can see in all of you the fear for what’s to come. Many of you have gone to the shore and looked across the Hudson at our enemy. Perhaps some of you have thought about running away. I understand that a few already have.
“Before we commit to this, I’d like to introduce somepony.” She gestured to the side of the stage, and Lloyd Meyer walked up the steps, hooves sounding in the silence as everyone around watched. His health had markedly improved since coming to Estel—his face looked to droop less, and some of the spots were gone from his bald head. There were even a few wispy strands of mane growing again. He was still a very old pony, shriveled limbs and knobby bones, but he didn’t seem to be in constant pain anymore. Alex knew why.
“Many of you will recognize Lloyd. He worked for the enemy—but we captured him. Lloyd, please tell the ponies of Estel what that army will do if it gets its way.”
He looked doubtful, glancing once over his shoulder. As if he didn’t believe Alex knew what she wanted. He obeyed anyway. However awful this pony may’ve been, he had always honored his promises. “They will slaughter every one of us,” he said. “When they finish with this settlement, they’ll sweep across the city, and occupy the island until they are certain they have found and killed every pony living here.”
A shiver of fear and surprise passed through the crowd. Most of the soldiers remained still, but she could still feel their fear. As she expected.
“We cannot run, Estel!” Archive shouted, stepping forward again. “But we do not need to! Our enemy has lost the secrets of magic, and they never knew our technology!”
She reached around her neck, removing the chunk of crystalline quartz hung there by thin twine. It was a shield spell, the same kind of shield all their soldiers were now wearing. It was modeled on the ones that Jackie and Ezri brought—except that the magic was far less stable, making it cheaper to cast. While projectiles directed outward would pass easily, those moving inward would swerve.
“We’re going to win tonight, ponies. Not because our ponies are better trained, or because our guns are better, or because our weather team has become experts with combat magic. We won’t win because our generals are smarter, or our strategies are better. All that is true, but it isn’t why you will all sleep safely tonight.
“We’re going to win because we’re fighting for a better cause. We’re fighting for our families, for our safety, our friends. They’re only fighting for gold, to serve the whims of a primitive king they’ve never met.
“You come from a proud history, people of Estel! Look and see the buildings all around us, remember the civilization we came from! Every one of us is an envoy from a better age. We look out at the despotism and inhumanity and we refuse to comply! We will be a rock! The world’s tyrants shatter on us!”
Ponies armed and unarmed alike cheered and stomped, so loud that the nearby buildings shook. Archive let the sound echo on, filling the clearing. Only when the last voice had faded did she start speaking again.
“We already know we can do the impossible. We’ve rebuilt civilization from what was left inside a tour bus. We’ve stopped the seasons and fed a city full of starving ponies. Together, we can stop an army.” She turned, nodding to Colonel Rhodes.
Tom saluted, then cleared his throat. “Everyone please move to your service station. Go go go!”
They did. The untrained crowd mobbed up into the building, moving sluggishly. Most of the soldiers left as well, pushing the cannons along with them. Archive was pleased to see the way they moved in disciplined lines.
Having a sword hanging over your neck was a great way to inspire ponies to do their best.
Fifty or so ponies remained in the square, every one of them protected with armor and magic and armed with the very best they could produce.
Not rifles, as the other soldiers used. These ponies had crossbows instead, though the bows lacked the actual bow mechanism or the cord. What they had instead was a spring-loaded mechanical magazine packed with metal spikes, and a set of enchanted crystals set into the sides.
Alex had reverse-engineered Kerberos—though like the shields, her own product was an inferior imitation. They lacked the skilled master craftsmen required for anything nearly as precise as her handgun.
The fifty ponies separated into new formations—groups of five. One unicorn to four earth ponies.
“How did I do?” Alex asked, her voice only loud enough for Tom to hear.
The stallion nodded. “You put a fire in them, I think. They’ll need it.”
Alex turned away from him. “You will be ready for our signal?”
“It may not be enough,” he muttered. “We made enough gunpowder for twenty shells, Madam President. If that isn’t enough to send them running…”
“I know.” She turned briefly, meeting his eyes again. “Fifteen thousand years of history is looking down on us, Colonel. We will not fail.”
She didn’t wait for his response, hopping down off the stage to where a few attendants were waiting with her own armor.
It had been scavenged from the best they had salvaged from Damocles’ own ponies, before being enchanted and then chrome-plated using the machinery in Alex’s saddlebags.
One of the unicorn craftsponies who had made the adjustments helped fit the flexible metal onto her body. She slipped her wings into the protective shell, then the unicorn settled the swept, lion-faced helmet onto her head. “Thank you for your help, Andrew.”
“Fight well,” he responded, before hurrying back into the central building.
“We will.” She advanced, and as she did her ponies straightened again, as though preparing for parade. “Demolition teams!” she barked.
“Aye!” Four of the teams of five stepped forward a half-step.
“Is the ordinance in order?” She went down the line, and the earth ponies in each group turned slightly, displaying the little wooden barrels they were wearing on their backs. Each one held about a gallon of thick, jelly-like slime, prepared with an emulsifier spell ponies had once used to spread paint on new buildings.
Archive doubted its Equestrian inventor would be too happy with what she planned to do with it.
“Breach team, on me!” At her words, Jackie, Ezri, and seven other of her most talented, experienced soldiers stepped forward.
“I know you’ve all heard the plan a thousand times as we’ve practiced, but here it is once more!” Alex raised her voice. “Breach goes through with me, clears the beach. Perimeter team holds the beach while the demo teams get their ordinance onto their assigned rafts. Do not make contact with the ships in any way once your barrels are open. If any of it gets onto your bodies, you will die. I’m not going to lose any one of you ponies out there tonight, are we clear?”
“Yes, Ma’am!”
“Good!” She walked forward through the assembled formation, breach team following her as she went. “When you pass through the return portal, do not do so at speed! Prepare to turn around immediately! Do not panic and gallop back through, or you will die!”
They passed outside the courtyard that had once been a public park. Young plants poked out through the dark soil here—a crop nopony would harvest.
At the very front of the structure was a reinforced concrete barricade like something out of WW2. Out in front of that was a trench, perhaps ten feet deep and ten feet long. The inside was lined with metal spikes, all set deep into the ground and pointed forward. At the very front of this trench were the unicorns and their waiting rune-circle.
The spell this one stored was complex enough to require three interlocking rings, complex enough that Archive had spent nearly two full days creating it. Not a single teleport, but a sustained conduit—a spell that could transport as many people as they needed a relatively short distance. So long as the unicorns had the strength, it would stay open.
Archive gestured, and her old friends stepped forward. They didn’t have metal armor, or imitation spells. Ezri’s powered armor and Jackie’s flexible, bulletproof fabric both seemed strangely frail compared to the thick metal plates that weighed Alex down.
“You don’t have to come,” Alex muttered, quiet enough that the other soldiers couldn’t hear. “Just because it looks like there aren’t that many guards watching the rafts doesn’t mean they might not react quicker than we expect. You could die.”
“Not bloody likely.” Jackie looked briefly down at the armor she wore. “You know what it would take to get through this stuff? This is carbon fiber thaumium weave.”
Ezri just nodded in agreement. “My armor can take a HEAT round. One of those flying squid-monsters swallowed me once, and I hardly felt it.”
“You smelled like fish for weeks,” Jackie countered. “Anyway Alex, we’re here to babysit you. These ponies are depending on you, so you’re sure as fuck coming back.”
“Thanks.” She resisted the temptation to hug both of them, much as she wanted to.
“Don’t mention it.” Jackie turned away, and Ezri followed, as they made their way back into formation.
What I wouldn’t give for five hundred of those suits. If only the old HPI had still existed. However callous they could sometimes seem, she didn’t doubt for a minute they would’ve committed resources to protecting a human colony like this.
They had no protectors left anymore. Nopony but her.
Archive stepped forward to her waiting unicorns—the colony’s strongest, best trained. Tom himself was among them, along with many other soldiers. Most were civilians—magic could be strengthened just as effectively sewing clothes as it could be practicing with swords. “Are you ponies prepared?”
The unicorns all shared a nervous glance. Tom was the first to respond. “On your order, Ma’am.”
“Do it.”
The unicorns, ten in all, circled the runes on two sides. On another side Alex and her ponies waited, and on the fourth—rows and rows of polished metal spikes, ready to impale anypony who followed.
The unicorns began to sing. The spell was much easier that way, when the structures of its runes were matched with a similar structure of words. This too Alex had composed, though of course her own voice would not have helped cast it. None of her ponies understood the Equestrian these unicorns had practiced. It didn’t matter. So long as they held the patterns and said the words, the spell would work.
They sung of the world long before, before stars and space and before even the Alicorns. They sung of the time when all space had been one, when position had been a meaningless word. The universe remembered what that time had been like. Properly coaxed, it could be persuaded to act that way. Buried in the runes was a very specific set of coordinates, exactly like those the Bloodgates used to send refugees into her city. Only these coordinates were on the other bank of the Hudson, where a row of twenty large rafts were being strung together.
Tomorrow or another day very soon, those rafts would be used to bridge the gap into her city and transport an invading army they could not resist. Archive’s plan tonight was one of desperation—destroy the way the enemy would use to reach them. With more time, they could manufacture more shells, more bullets, more cannons. Enough of those, and forty to one odds wouldn’t seem so bad.
The spell took, and a crack like thunder split the night. There was a flash from the center of the circle, and a hair-thin crack about as tall as a human appeared there in the dark. Through it, Archive could see a faint wisp of sand, of wood, and a single startled pony with faux-leather armor.
“For Estel!” she shouted. Dozens of voices took up her shout, before charging along behind her through the opening.
There was no period of vacuum or freezing temperatures, as in a conventional teleport. The gate spell skipped the intervening space altogether, depositing Archive on the other side. Archive did not slow down or stop running, but she did raise her handgun, killing half a dozen ponies with a single shot each.
A distant alarm-bell had already started to ring as her ponies came through the doorway, pouring out along the beach and moving down the line of rafts. How long do we have? Archive wondered. How long will it take for a significant force to be raised? She could only hope they would be long gone by then.
The remaining guards on the beach fell to rifle shots or magical attacks from her soldiers, without her own ponies taking a single casualty. Their bladed weapons required physical contact, after all. Her soldiers would not give them that chance. “Burn them!” she shouted, advancing towards the camp. “None of those rafts survive!”
Dark shapes moved in the air above her. They would be nothing more than blurry suggestions to Alex’s other ponies. To her own thestral eyes, she could make them out clearly. A whole wing of thestrals, with only two ponies blocking their path to the ground.
A broken corpse landed on the ground in front of her, a red line running across its neck.
“Shield wall!” Archive commanded, and at once the ponies responded. A dozen earth ponies lowered heavy wooden shields, bracing against them as their companions prepared bayonets on their rifles.
Archive blinked, and for a moment it seemed she had marshaled thousands of men. The Roman formation she had used was manned by armored centurions and legionnaires, spears and shields flashing in the moonlight.
The vision faded, leaving only one ghost beside her. “You have held the beach for nearly five minutes,” the ghost said, walking beside her with a gold plume on his helmet and hands folded in front of him. “Their elites will be marshaled by now. Even disorganized, their numbers will overwhelm you.”
Several more ponies tumbled out of the air above her, bodies twitching and spasming from electrical stimulation. Most weren’t dead yet, though after a fall like that… they would be soon.
“Give the signal!” Archive shouted to the nearest unicorn. “Time for the wakeup call!”
The unicorn, a slim mare with a terrified expression, nodded and closed her eyes in concentration. A second later a bright red flash rose from her horn, a brilliant lance of magic that went up and up into the night.
“Brace for bombardment!” Archive shouted, looking back to the beach. Her ponies had already dumped most of their barrels—only a few of the rafts were not being slowly coated in shimmering slime. None of it had done anything yet. Despite her warnings about an early death for any who splashed the emulsion on their bodies, they planned on setting it all off at once.
Distant explosions mingled freely with the shouting and scrambling of the army, much closer to her. She heard the screaming whistle of air as the first shell came down.
Archive had used a design from the second world war, a ten-pound charge with special fins and cuts in the frame that guided air to make that terrifying whistling sound.
Another second and the first shell struck the camp just up the hill. Tents exploded, ponies and gear went flying through the air.
Her own ponies were prepared, and they did not break. The trickle of enemy troops against their shield-wall stopped in their tracks, staring back at their camp even as three more shells landed.
Two more explosions broke the night (evidently one of the shells had been a dud), the shouting of officers and disciplined ponies as they marshaled a resistance was lost in terrified screaming.
The ghost looked on, approval on his stern face. “This would never have worked on one of my armies. These troops did not maintain camp discipline. They were so confident they would not be attacked that they had no procedure in place.”
They came to murder civilians, Archive thought. We weren’t supposed to fight back.
More gunshots rang out, and more thestrals dropped to the ground. Another second later and Ezri landed beside her, passing through the ghost without noticing him.
“Just what we were afraid of!” she shouted. “Slave pens are on the other side of the camp. No chance we could make it that far.”
Stride will be disappointed. Archive didn’t say that, though. “We’ll save the deer next time!” She glanced briefly at the shore again, taking in the beach. The last of the barrels were now open, many of her ponies already making their way back through the gate. Only her perimeter team had not moved.
“Prepare the retreat!” Archive bellowed. The ghost who had been following her flickered, then blinked out without another word. “Our work is done, ponies! Nice and orderly, back to the gate!”
The air shook around her, and another four mortar rounds struck the camp one after another. Explosions broke through the darkness again, and metal shrapnel tore through everything around them when they landed without resistance.
They retreated towards the water in an orderly row, not breaking formation even as another round of mortars came whistling across the river.
Archive felt it in the air before she saw it: a warping distortion near the shore, bending and twisting the space between her and the portal. They intended to cut off her retreat.
“Silvia, shield!” she barked, pointing at the place she already felt the strange magic building. “Right there!” She drew her pistol, sighting at the spot.
A second later and a flash of reddish light enveloped the place, too quick for Silvia’s magic. By the time the unicorn’s horn had started to glow, the teleport was already finished.
A unicorn in white armor stood there, flanked by four armored ponies on each side of a smattering of races. They stood at alert, taking defensive postures, but none attacked. They would have been shot to pieces if they had.
Unfortunately for Alex, the surprise and the mortar bombardment wouldn’t protect them forever. She could see many ponies in the distance, charging for the beach despite the bombardment and the occasional shower of bodies.
Maybe they figured out how little damage we’re actually doing, she thought. Even if every shell killed ten ponies, we wouldn’t even make a dent. “Surround them!” she barked. “We’ll take these ponies with us if we can!”
The pony in white armor—a young stallion with a handsome face and a white coat under all his armor—stepped forward. He said something to her, eyes wide in confusion. She couldn’t understand it.
A second later and a pair of armored figures had landed on either side of her. Jackie wiped the blood from her dagger, sheathing it on the cloth of her armor even as Ezri spoke.
“He wants to know why you’re talking like Outcasts,” Ezri said.
“Tell him I am the God of the Outcasts,” Archive answered, feeling the breeze at her back at that moment. “Tell him this is the retribution for encroaching on my sacred city.”
Archive stood a little straighter, meeting the stallion’s eyes. Even as she did so, her concentration had been split several different ways. Another bombardment whistled overhead, scattering and delaying the troops from the camp a little longer. There would be one more like that, before her guns would adjust their sights to fire on the ships. It would not be good to be standing on the beach when that happened.
The general laughed, gesturing at Alex. One of his soldiers raised a crossbow—and died seconds later. Kerberos ignored his magical shield, as it had ignored every shield it had encountered, and Alex’s aim was as perfect as ever.
“Tell him if he does that again, I’ll kill him.” Archive kept her voice even. A god would not be frightened. Nor was she. It wasn’t her own life she was afraid for.
Ezri translated, and this time the stallion did not laugh. Rather, he seemed to have to bark at his bodyguards just to keep them still. They had all locked concentration on Archive, as though about to start a charge.
Her own ponies would be ready for that, though not for much longer. The first reinforcements were cresting the nearby hill. Many were only partially armored, or carrying makeshift weapons. They were packed so thick that it wouldn’t matter.
The pony in white armor spoke, his voice cold. Ezri translated in time with his words. “The Outcasts have no gods. They were forsaken for their sins, and now face the punishment. You are a pretender.”
“This pretender demands he get out of the way!” Archive barked, firing off into the air once. “Team, wedge formation!”
They moved to obey. Earth ponies dropped their shields, bracing against their pikes instead. These would fit into their armor, and would allow them to channel all the force of a charge into an attack.
The pony in white and his bodyguards moved out of the way. Not towards the ships, as she had hoped, but against the hill instead.
“Close!” Archive commanded. “Full retreat!”
Herself, Jackie, and Ezri kept their backs to the ponies as they marched through. Not a gallop, since that would take them right into the waiting spikes.
“You have accomplished nothing,” Ezri translated. “Whatever magic you brought, it won’t be enough to stop us.”
At that moment, the final barrage of mortars came down on the camp, with its accompanying explosions. More ponies died. Not nearly enough.
Archive was alone with her “bodyguards” now, all three standing back against the opening. This close, Archive felt the magic tickle against her coat, making her mane stand on end. It was a powerful spell, exhausting, draining the strength of her unicorns. They would not be able to hold it for much longer.
“The Nameless City is awake,” Archive said, the wind whipping up her mane around her. She could not fly with so much armor, yet it felt a little like the air was lifting her anyway. “None of your scouts have returned. If they had, they wouldn’t have told you about a population shriveled and starved—my ponies are strong.” She raised her handgun. “Our weapons are beyond your comprehension. In my grace, I will permit him to keep his throne, so long as your army leaves my city in peace.”
How long would it take for her ponies to re-sight their aim? Not much longer. She had given them exact instructions.
The army was pouring down the hill, the first of their hooves flooding onto the soft sand there. It wouldn’t be much longer before they reached Archive and overwhelmed them. Even with Kerberos, she could kill only so many.
“Empty threats!” Ezri translated. “We don’t fear you!”
With her sensitive hearing, Archive heard the whistling that meant incoming mortar shells. The last volley, the one that wouldn’t have gunpowder. Instead, they would have more of the jelly already spread in a thin layer onto the resting ships.
“Fear this.” Archive stepped back, and at her gesture Ezri and Jackie did as well. They dodged carefully around to the portal, and stepped through it to the other side.
Doing so let them watch the ships, or at least a single view of them. “End it!” Archive screamed, over the strained, singing voices of the unicorns.
They did, almost in unison. Many dropped to the ground right where they stood, collapsing from the sustained effort. The portal remained open for a fraction of a second more, filling with a brief flash of orange light.
Archive felt a little of the heat, but that was all. None of that energy managed to pass through before the spell flickered out.
Somewhere far away, Archive could make out a faint flash of orange. Bright enough that she could see its faint suggestions even in the dark.
Despite the evident strain of the spellcasting, Tom remained on his hooves. “How did it go?” he asked. “Do you think it worked?”
Archive frowned at the ground. “We must prepare as though it didn’t,” she answered, holstering Kerberos. “Get your team back into the fortress.”
She turned back, facing her own exhausted ponies. A few had taken minor injuries while securing the beach, but not many. None were seriously hurt—thanks to the surprise and their firearms, she suspected.
“Good work, ponies!” She raised one hoof in salute to them. Those with the strength returned the gesture. “I for one would like to see the bonfire!”
She didn’t have to fly far—just as high as the tallest buildings. Far in the distance, Archive could make out the distinct shapes of barges burning. Bright orange, angry flames rising into the night, illuminating the shadows of ponies on the beach.
Even as she watched, a bucket brigade passed filled buckets towards one of the nearer barges. One of the ponies dumped their bucket, and the flames seemed to soar a little higher, ignoring the moisture. They tried for a few minutes longer, without much effect.
Estel was safe, at least for the night. The army wouldn’t be reaching them now.
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Each week is an agonizing wait! I love it!
The rock upon which tyrants shatter - that's nice. A little Peter, a little Brutus, more than a little Daniel. Is it a paraphrase of something?
She really need to pull a freaking miracle our of her Archive bottom.
7844944
Probably. Doesn't mean I have to like it
7849590
Hey! You're that guy from that other fic I'm following. What are you doing over here, silly pony?
That's a claim they're going to remember after the war is over.
Hm... if they completely stop the plan to cross on barges, aren't the invaders likely to set up mass-sacrificing activations of the bloodgate instead? Better rescue those deer sooner rather than later, I think...
This is by far my favorite fic.
7849735 Fimfiction is the Cradle of Creation. Within it are great many worlds, crafted by the hands of beings who dwell here, some more professional and experienced than others.
I am merely another being who dwell in the "Void" that is Fimfiction. Another being in the many that move around and entertain themselves with the mortal worlds created by those who creates.
7849566
It is that wait that makes it all the better.
7849647 All the more reason to hurry up and ascend you silly pony =P
Oooh! You sure gave it to those invaders good! I bet after that SOME of those troops will at least start to question if you really are the "God of the outcasts" >=)
I just realized that this series is like 500,000 words!
So, let's see. Alexander Haggard, Archive of Humanity, Blessed Memory, God of the Outcasts?
Wonderful! I'll save this new chapter for my lunch break today. Always love having something to read then.
7849990
I prefer Archive of Humanity
God of the Outcast isn't accurate.
Wait, did all of Archive's ponies survive?
She's good.
7849904
A 4000 letter chapter is too short through.
Still a great chapter.
7849855
I didn't know that!
I thought it was a website! Guess you learn something new everyday! 
7850678 well, I can see that on Portal 2, a lot of fanfiction sites, and I think those rp sites.
And something else goes right for once.
Badass.
7849784
The bloodgate is a tiny chokepoint, whereas the barges let the army come all at once. Even if they use the bloodgate, the city has much better odds.
What was in those barrels?
7851702 Greek fire?
7849922
Actually, I haven't done that yet. From my perspective, this conversation is happening during the period when I was dead, after Salazar killed me in the reactor chamber. I lost consciousness, there was a period of disorientation, and then...I was here. As an alicorn, just to make things weirder. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that humans were not only alive and well, but were writing fanfiction about me on the Internet.
Based on Starscribe's writing, I'm guessing I figure out a way back at some point, but whatever it is de-ascends me and strips the memories of my time here. Hopefully it's possible to ascend more than once...Sunset, at least, seems to think it is.
Incidentally, I don't really know what verb tense to use in this situation
7851682
That's not much good to the sacrificed deer though, is it?
Estel's defences don't seem to be built around the bloodgate anyway, and I don't think I'd like to have to hold that point while the invaders' pegasi assaulted from above either.
7852036
I doubt holding the bloodgate is going to be much of a problem, but it does make strategic sense to rescue the deer sooner rather than later. I believe the optimal strategy is to launch a series of raids on the enemy's supply lines, and the deer are rather important to those supply lines.
7851803 Napalm. Or at least a good enough substitute. Easier to make, and as effective or even more.
So, she has more time now. Maybe some Gatling guns of old? A little magic for cooler operation temperatures and not-jamming and they could stop those 40:1 odds easily. Well, not easily, but it would become more feasible.
I still think she should make magical bombs, though. Hard to believe she can't, considering what magical feats she realized... But then again, maybe she never developed it. Siege ordinance probably wasn't something relevant in her civilization days
And lo, the Archive Norris jokes were born.
7852046 correct, you can get what... 4 maybe 6 people at most if your lucky through the gate on one offering? You would need around 5000 deer/other beings to get your army of 20,000 through. And it would be more like a slaughter on the other side of the gate as they just kill whoever comes through.
Guarding the skies wouldn't be difficult with their ranged weapons and weather magic.
hum a jelly like substance that reacts to water.
way am I thinking this is Greek Fire ?
Wohoo, score one for Estel!
(How do you pronounce that anyway, is it Es-tell, or Es-el, with a silent T?)
I love the bit about the transportation spell, the singing to "remind the universe" was a really interesting addition. Your magic system/lore in this series is really intesting, it's much more than point-and-shoot magic like you see in most fiction.were there any main influences in thinking it up?
The one thing about this chapter is that it could have probably used more description of what exactly was going on. I found myself getting lost in several parts and occasionally at a loss for how to imagine somthing due to sparse descriptions.
Welp, looks they're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way, like in the great city-sieges of old:
Build a causeway. You can't burn down rocks and packed earth.
7859491
hehe, just like the ancient Romans. Those guys were hella smart.
7859491 the defenders have great cover, artillery and accurate rifles, the Hudson would flow red for a week for every toot the causeway grew.
7859491
No, you just have a corps of Earth ponies rend it from below, and drop the invading army into the river.
With odds like these there is no such thing as overkill. Lets hope they did some real damage to morale.
8190201
reminds me of a scene in "gust front", by John Ringo, where lots of very stupid aliens were crossing a bridge. only a few realized that the river turning yellow was a bad sign and turned around. (they had yellow blood) the rest charged through the smokescreen into a crossfire with Powered Armor on BOTH sides. literally MILLIONS of them died that day.