Spike's Doom and/or Destiny

by terrycloth

Down the River

“We need to turn around,” Bon Bon said, after they’d finished looting the orcs. Between the physical differences between an orc and a pony, and Spike’s newfound ‘melt armor’ power, none of their equipment was usable, and their trail supplies were meat-based, but at least they’d had some golz on them.

“They said they worked for Lord Orcus,” Spike said. “This has to be the right valley this time.”

“Maybe, but that fight was way too hard. I could overlook the trouble we had with the cows since it was an optional sidequest, but if we’re having this much trouble with the main storyline then we’ve obviously missed something major.” Bon Bon frowned. “Maybe we don’t actually improve after levelling up until we find a trainer? I hope we’re not just supposed to walk in circles out in the fields fighting chickens for a few weeks.”

Moondancer spread out the map, and they gathered around. “There’s a symbol north of the church. It looks like a mountain pass?”

“We could check it out, but it’s probably blocked off somehow,” Bon Bon said. “What about this?” She set a hoof on a cluster of symbols to the south. “River Town.”

“It’s a bit out of the way,” Spike said. They’d have to go farther east, turn south for a while, and then head back west, skirting yet another mountain range. “It’ll take us days to get there.”

“There’s nothing actually in the way,” Moondancer admitted. “But won’t it be blocked off like the pass, if we’re not supposed to go there yet?”

Bon Bon shrugged. “I’m sure the river crossing will, but I bet we can get into the town and go shopping.”

“You’re betting a week of our time,” Spike said.

“It’s that or we start grinding orcs,” Bon Bon said. “And with them ignoring Spike, that’s going to be tough. I don’t want to risk going up against a boss until we can easily defeat his minions – Baalzebull came too close to winning that fight.”

“Couldn’t we just go back to Castle Town?” Derpy asked. “I’m sure we missed stuff there. We didn’t buy all the most expensive things in the stores or anything.”

“That’s even farther,” Spike said, cringing.

“So it’s settled, then?” Bon Bon asked.

Moondancer narrowed her eyebrows. “How is it settled? No one wants to go there but you.”

“Sure, but none of you have any good arguments, so I win.” Bon Bon stood up, and headed back towards the edge of the forest. “Come on, let’s go.”

===

They ran into another group of orcs on the way out of the forest. This time, Spike roared a challenge and charged at them straight off, which got their attention, and his armor stood up to their swords a lot better than Bon Bon or Moondancer had.

There was a third orc in the back, though, wearing robes and carrying a skull-tipped staff, who cast a spell to summon a localized blizzard. Bon Bon had to break off her attack and feed everypony some of the mint candies she’d made at the farm – the refreshing taste helped them focus through the blinding snow, and the cold, and somehow made it easier for them to keep their feet with the ground under them slick and frosty, and it was obviously another manifestation of the weird magic of the world they were in.

It didn’t help much against the bruises and cuts from the unnaturally sharp hail that came with the storm, so they all had to snack on muffins afterwards.

“These swords are crap,” Spike said, “and the shields are too big. How’s the staff?”

Moondancer lifted it in her magic, and her eyes went unfocused for a second… then started to mist up, with green and purple smoke oozing from her tear ducts. She dropped it in a hurry. “Cursed,” she said, stomping on the skull and crushing it. There was a brief scream of spectral agony, and then the staff crumbled to dust. “Of course it’s cursed.”

Bon Bon frowned. “We could have sold that.”

===

Back on the road, they ran into some bandits, who weren’t very good fighters but tried to fight to the death anyway. They failed. Derpy spent most of the fight healing them after they were taken down by Bon Bon or Moondancer, and managed to save most of them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on our side?” Moondancer asked.

“They were ponies! And not monster ponies or anything like that,” Derpy said. “They were just going to rob us.”

“Did you miss the part where they kept stabbing me with their daggers?” Spike asked. “I mean, yeah, none of them managed to land an actual hit, but they were trying.”

“They were just going to rob us until we started fighting back,” Derpy said, glowering at him. “Besides,” she added, after the last of the bandits had limped off out of sight, “I kind of want to fight them again. They were really weak and had a lot of golz.”

“Well, they won’t have any golz if we run into them again,” Spike said. “We just took it all.”

Derpy blinked. “What do you mean? Won’t they just go get more from home?”

“They’ll get more if they can successfully rob other ponies,” Moondancer said.

“Maybe they’ll get some from other enemies?” Spike suggested.

“Like the chickens?” Moondancer asked.

“The chickens had golz? Oh, I knew we should have checked inside the chickens,” Derpy said, pouting.

Moondancer shook her head. “Golz may be worthless play money, but I don’t think it’s literal chicken feed.”

Bon Bon tapped at the ground a few times, glancing back over her shoulder in the direction of Castle Town. “We should check, when we go back that way.”

“Ew,” Derpy said. “No.”

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. “You were butchering chickens left and right, and now you’re getting squeamish about cutting up ones that are already dead?”

“Spike can do it,” Moondancer said. “He eats meat, right?”

“I guess,” Spike said. “Cutting things up with swords is kind of gross but I’m getting used to it.”

===

The next few days – they’d decided to start calling the periods in between sleep days, since they all knew what they were talking about – passed uneventfully, with only routine monster attacks. There were some chickens (that did not have any golz in their stomachs), an evil-cow-and-evil-farmer pair, and even another, smaller group of bandits. They turned south, and turned back west, and then finally River Town was in sight, far in the distance.

That was when the wolves attacked.

A giant white wolf stood ahead of them in the road, blocking their path, and howled. They all rushed forward to attack it, Spike slamming it in the face with his shield while Bon Bon and Derpy circled around to approach its flanks, and Moondancer summoned lightning. It countered Spike’s shield-bash by biting his ankle, dropping him on his tail, and six smaller wolves leapt out of hiding and attacked the rest of the party.

“Ahh! Get away from me! Big Bee’s Bubble!” The bubble expanded around Moondancer, scraping off the wolf that had been biting at her ankle, but she was bleeding badly from a slash at her belly that her robes had done little to stop. This time, at least, the bubble held up against the little wolves’ attacks, and she was able to nose into her saddlebag and get one of the candies Bon Bon had made them all carry, which slowed the bleeding.

Derpy’s reflexes had saved her – she’d managed to dodge one of the wolves outright, and the other was hanging by its jaws from her hind leg while she flew twenty feet up in the air. It didn’t let go in time as she doubled over and swung her cutlass, and soon it was dead weight.

Bon Bon managed to buck one of the wolves in the face as it leapt at her, dropping it, but the other wolf tore a chunk out of her cutie mark, which wasn’t covered by her armored jacket – and then Moondancer’s wolves and Derpy’s remaining wolf joined in. She swung her ladle valiantly, but soon went down under a pile of snarling and snapping wolves, screaming in agony briefly, before going silent.

“Spike!” Moondancer shouted, pointing at the dogpile on Bon Bon after getting his attention. “Use flamethrower, now!”

Spike turned and let out a huge belch of flames, engulfing the smaller wolves and setting them on fire. They scattered, and Derpy and Moondancer charged after them with cutlass and scythe, finishing them off.

But that left the large wolf free to lock its jaws around Spike’s helmet from behind. It lifted him off the ground and shook him back and forth rapidly, then threw him to the ground and leapt on him while he was still dizzy. There was the sound of tearing metal as its claws and teeth started to rip off pieces of his armor.

“Spike, batter up!” said Derpy, and the giant wolf yelped and leapt back as a torrent of chilly, sticky muffin batter poured down over the little dragon. Moondancer wasted no time in putting a bubble around it.

“Bon Bon, are you okay?” she asked. When there was no answer, she added, “Are you still alive?”

“Um…” Derpy said, hovering over the bloody pile that used to be her friend and poking at it with a hoof. “She’s not eating the muffins, so I think she’s probably dead. Can I borrow some golz? Bon Bon took mine.”

“Bon Bon has all the golz,” Spike said, chewing slowly on a muffin while watching the bubbled wolf cautiously. It howled in rage, but couldn’t break out. “She said she wanted to count how much we had, for when we got to town.”

“I’m going to search her pockets, then,” Derpy said, rolling her over. “If I can find them. She’s really a mess.”

“Maybe you should try the resurrection spell?” Spike suggested. “Just saying.”

“The material component is 100 golz,” Moondancer said. “Life isn’t cheap.”

“Found it!” Derpy said, scooping out handfuls of the light, gold-colored coins. “I hope this works.”

“Actually, 100 golz is pretty cheap,” Spike noted. “The hamburgers cost 50 golz each.”

“Oh Great Muffin, please accept my offering, and bring Bon Bon back to life!”

Bon Bon groaned, and twitched. None of her wounds were healed, but at least she was moving. Derpy poked at one of the muffins near what she was pretty sure was her face, and nudged it a little closer.

After three muffins, she was looking a lot better. “I think I was dead,” she groaned.

“Yeah, we noticed,” Moondancer said. “Derpy’s spell works, by the way.”

Bon Bon nodded, climbing to her hooves. “Did we win?”

“Not… exactly,” Spike said, motioning towards the giant wolf, still trapped in its bubble, pacing back and forth now, and watching the party hungrily.

Bon Bon smiled mirthlessly, and took out her lasso. “Drop the bubble, and let’s finish this.”

The lasso-and-scythe trick worked against the wolf almost as well as it had against the cows. Moondancer had to use Reaper’s Strike twice before she could actually slit its throat, thanks to its thick fur and loose hide, but it never actually got to do anything else before it died.

“That wolf fur has to be worth something,” Derpy said.

“Is it still going to be worth something after you try to skin it?” Moondancer asked.

The answer was ‘no’. On the plus side, they got to unintentionally search the wolf’s stomach for valuables, and it actually did have a few hundred golz inside.

===

“So,” Spike said. “Those wolves were pretty hard. Are you sure we’re supposed to go this way yet?”

“I’m sure we’re not,” Bon Bon replied. “But if we can make it to River Town, and buy equipment we’re not supposed to have yet, Lord Orcus and his orcs will be a breeze.”

“And if we can’t?” Moondancer asked.

Bon Bon frowned. “I’m pretty sure we can. If nothing else, we can run away.”

“I don’t think I can outrun a wolf,” Spike said. “I could never outrun the timberwolves back home.”

“Derpy can carry you,” Bon Bon looked up at Derpy. “Right?”

Derpy grinned. “Sure! He’s a lot lighter than the stuff I usually carry.”

“I don’t think I can outrun a wolf either,” Moondancer said.

Bon Bon narrowed her eyes. “Why, Moondancer,” she said, in mock surprise. “Are you saying you want to ride Derpy?”

“You – you –” the unicorn’s face turned bright red, and she lifted up her scythe. “You pervert!”

Bon Bon laughed as she ran away, Moondancer chasing after her surprisingly quickly.

Comments

[RowynII]

Maybe Moondancer only wants to ride Derpy while Spike's riding her too? It's a threesome!

[redmar]

It really seems that Moondancer knows very little spells which I find strange given how long she did nothing other than studying.

[terrycloth]

10058335
She wasn't just studying magic. Especially not practical spellcasting type magic. History and pottery and stuff were in there too.