She was in a place full of fire. Wherever Twilight turned, someone was dying. Gnolls with wicked smiles and sharpened blades cut down the small ponies, each time looking at her with an awful smile. She would be next. Every time she ran, another got cut down, and she got that look. She would be next. A gnoll rose from the ground in front of her, pick raised high. "Stupid pony!" It swung the weapon down with all its brutish strength.
Twilight jerked awake with a shudder, tears flowing with the memory of the massacre she had survived.
"Did I rouse you?" Roll was there. She was dimly visible in the light. "We should speak. If our captors continue to trust us, today we make our move. I only require you to follow my lead. Stay close."
Twilight shivered, remembering the small pony she had told the same to, but she had been powerless to help them. Was she the powerless one? Yes. Yes, she was. Or so she decided after a moment of thought. She reached into the darkness and gently nudged Sunset.
Sunset nodded in the dark. "I'm already awake. I heard." She sat up and stretched slowly. "Ugh, I don't suppose... there's a laundry day?"
"Negative. The likelihood of laundering, especially for slaves, is vanishingly tiny." Roll raised a brow. "Unless you have magic, we are stuck with the raiments we arrived in."
Did Roll have clothes? Twilight looked over the metal pony to confirm that she had some, covering her chest and front, but nothing over her flank or back sections at all. Curious... "Is that what you normally wear?"
"For the dance, yes." Roll smoothly slid to her hooves. "Come, they will be coming for us soon."
They had been working for... it was hard to tell exactly how much time had passed, but they were apparently 'good'. They were largely left alone and trusted to get to work when they were told, so the screams of hit ponies didn't come from them.
Twilight didn't like it. But she liked the idea of being the one taking the whip even less, so she was good and worked and wished she had her hands back. It was bad enough digging every day, but doing it with her neck? She was surprised she hadn't broken something.
A gem gnoll entered their small cave and squinted at them. "Big job today. Dangerous. Do good, reward. Do bad, dead." He shrugged and turned around.
In silence, the three followed after him. There were other groups being led in the same direction, but none of them spoke. None dared. To speak was to invite that whip. Twilight had dared once, only once... Her snout still stung from where the scaled whip had dug into her and tore free some fur along the way.
They were quiet.
They were led to what felt like lower. They went down several rough ramps until they arrived where the gnoll wanted. "Something in the air killed last diggers. You do good so far. You dig, no die. Get at least ten gems before lunch." He nodded firmly. "Ten gems, or lashes, one for each missing. No lashes all day, reward."
The 'reward' typically consisted of a meal worth having instead of the paltry servings they typically offered. Roll had won the reward whenever offered and always gave it to Twilight or Sunset. Twilight and Sunset, not so lucky. They had avoided being punished, but they weren't fast or durable enough to find gems and to make the quotas consistently. Only luck allowed them to find big enough gems to make the gnolls happy.
The hyena laughed to himself as he walked away, leaving them to their work. Roll moved to a wall and began working at it. "We will wait until lunch. That is when they will least expect our movement, expecting us to be tired. Reserve your strength. I will find your gems."
Sunset picked up her pick with her magic. "Do you breathe? I mean... I'm worried." She glanced around the darkness, only lit by a torch that was too far away. "He said this place killed a few miners already."
Roll nodded. "Exactly why we're moving today. It's a calculated risk." She brought down the pick in a savage swing, sending rocks and flecks of valuable gems to the ground. The area was thick with them.
Sunset's nose wrinkled. "No wonder they're willing to risk to get it."
"Willing to risk the life of others." Roll brought down her pick solidly. "Reserve your strength."
Twilight gave a few swings of her pick. Pony necks were strong... She could mine, she just wasn't really... She would rather be doing almost anything else. She kept her tool raised high, but didn't swing. Any gnoll that came in on them by surprise wouldn't find her slacking off, or so she hoped. Something bothered her and she moved beside Sunset. "Sunset?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't you, you know, do more magic?"
Sunset raised an ear. "Not a terrible question... Magic here, uh, this world here, it feels... strange." She made a swinging motion with her pick. "My horn works about the same. I thought I'd send a force bolt at that goddess, but instead fwoosh, fire. I don't normally make fire."
"You were on fire before," pointed out Twilight. "The kids said you were a flaming demon, once, you know?"
Sunset frowned at that. "Do we have to bring that up in the middle of a terrible situation?"
"I don't mean to pick on you." Twilight gave a little smile that she hoped would be reassuring. "It's just, you know, new world, new rules. Maybe you're related to that, you know, fiery?"
"So I'm fiery?"
"Could be." Twilight nodded. "Best theory we have so far."
"What are you then?"
Twilight sagged at that. "Mostly useless, so far..."
"Don't say that." Sunset nudged against her before moving towards the wall again to at least pretend she was working. "The way I see it, the moment we get out of this place, we'll at least show you how to use that horn of yours. You're a unicorn, girl! Magic is what you do."
Roll glanced towards then before she struck firm and true, unsettling more stone to the ground. "Why do you speak as if unicorns are the only ones capable of magic?" She glanced at them, then away. "I am perfectly capable without a horn."
Sunset started at the news. "Wait, what? You can do magic?" She glanced away and back at the mechanical pony. "You haven't done any since you got here,"
"Correct." She struck true, keeping her tempo even. "There is no reason to give away my advantage until we act. If you also have magic, you will want to put it to use when we move."
Twilight made a sympathetic swing of her pick. Watching Roll do all the work... "What should I do?"
"Stay close. Attempt to not be in the way." She raised a hoof and brought down the metal limb down on the wall. A hairline fracture ran up the stone and expanded as it shattered, raining rocks, both sparkling and otherwise. "Assist me in locating the gems they desire."
That Twilight could do. She set her pick down and began to sift through the rocks quickly, pushing the more glittering specimens aside to add to their collection for the day. By her quick counting, they had enough to avoid punishments that day. Twilight didn't have a clock, but that felt fast. "How do you do this so fast?"
She set her pick down with a metallic sigh. "Strength the gods gave me. I would have preferred another gift, but one does not get to argue with gods, not and survive to tell about it."
Sunset let out a nervous laugh.
Roll picked up on it and raised a brow high. "Is that how you came to be here, angered a god? You should count yourself fortunate this manual labor is the extent of your punishment."
Sunset shook her head violently. "I, uh, you remember Lashtada right?"
"Affirmative."
"She wanted to... do things... with my friend." Sunset pointed to Twilight. "I kinda..." Her voice dropped low, almost a pathetic squeak, " I mighta attacked her a little."
Roll did not react as the two were expecting. She looked thoughtful instead for a long moment. "I thought she had not arrived... If she was there, why did she allow this attack to proceed? Those are her children, many quite literally. She is very protective of them..."
Twilight raised a hoof as she was about to respond, but a gnoll approached. "Better not be talking instead of digging. Must be confident. Let's see how many gems you found." He ambled up towards them, eyeing the pile of gems they had produced with greedy eyes. "One, two..."
The gnoll picked through the pile, making an appreciative noise at a few, and discarding a few others. "Not bad. No lashes. Take break, food." He produced a bag of oats and tossed them on the ground as if they would eat them like any random farm horse. "Eat quick, then mine. Since so good, target higher, twenty gems by rest time."
He ambled off, leaving them to their... meal.
Sunset grabbed the bag in her magic and poured some into a waiting hoof to start chewing moodily.
Roll nodded. "Eat. You will need the strength. It is time to move soon." She glanced left and right slowly. "Tonight, we will know freedom, or the release of death, which is a freedom of another sort. I prefer the former."
Twilight rose and approached Sunset, who levitated the bag over and fed Twilight without being asked. She stuffed the hoof-full into her mouth and got chewing. "Tell me this world has tastier things than this..."
"You truly are outsiders... We have a wide variety of food, but I admit I usually only sample a great deal on our special day." She quirked a smile. "Memories of the last sustain me right now. I plan to survive to the next. What of you two? What will you survive for?"
Sunset cleared her throat softly. "Well, I want to get home." She smiled at Twilight. "I want to protect my friend."
Twilight flushed. She hated being the helpless damsel, but what could she do? "I..." That warmth inside of her had never gone away. Whatever the goddess had done, it remained with her. Another mark the world had left on her, like the scar on her very inhuman nose. "I'm tired of being pushed around."
"Then let us do the pushing." Roll shook herself off, then grabbed the heavy pick. "It is time to mine for gnoll brains, but only the ones that get in our way. Follow me." She trotted off into the darkness, her pick seeming to take a whole new dimension as she wielded it, seemingly perfectly ready to use it against any she decided deserved it.
And when Sunset and Twilight returned to Canterlot High after many adventures, they had to explain a young fluffy-headed child they had with them.... fertility goddesses have one track minds. ;)
img03.deviantart.net/1575/i/2015/094/a/b/fluffle_puff_and_sunset_shimmer_by_avispaneitor-d8oc69o.jpg
Art from here
7300300 i I'd pay good money to read a eqg story where sunset and sci Twi have flufflepuff as a biological daughter
Nice adventure so far, Two and Sunset haven't had time for deep reflection, but they have strong, quite characterful feelings about all that comes, and the plot is exciting.
So it begs the question, why did that goddess allow this to happen? I am willing to bet that this time it was a fake goddess or someone impersonating the goddess. Now let's see the girls go on a Gem Gnoll killing spree!
Will they pick up some of the shards or even last gems they mined, as Sunset should be used to gems being worth money more than Twilight?
Will they ever achieve PC Sheet point, or is that not for another few chapters, locations, yet?
I take it Clockworks, like living things, due to the life force, complexisty, cant be exactly duplicated by non deity spells for saving for transfering to later in life?
Wonder what was killing them off in that area. Dark dwellers, tomb guards, gas pockets, curses, leech stones or such?
They are at the start of the loss of the short leggs, so they will be the reason the short leggs survived long enough for Pinkie and freinds to help them return, in the future?
7300389 The shortlegs didn't die instantly. They're a durable race and lived for some generations, sad and forgotten underground.
7300382
Actually I think her physical avatar was disrupted, so she didn't 'allow' anything. Roll notes that the attack was unusually well coordinated for Gem Gnolls, meaning they probably had enough foreknowledge of the festival to know to pack someone with enough divine or arcane power to cast a banishment strong enough to knock a god off the material plane, if only for long enough to do their dirty work.
This seems interesting so far, and I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out. My only question is how meta Twilight might get if she realises she is in a campaign...
7300889 But she already realized. What can she do with that knowledge right now?
Hmm. It seems Lashtada left a lasting impact on Twilight. Interesting. It remains to be seen how that expresses itself. Meanwhile, Sunset is grappling with unfamiliar magical laws. That could end very well or very poorly, but either way, it seems like it will end in fire.
Looks like the next chapter will be explosive. I look forward to it.
Also, I struck typo:
Capitalization needed.
7301033 Fix'd! Let's write it...
Amazing chapter as all ways.
7300927 I see it as Twilight knowing she is in 'Ogres and Oubliettes', but hasn't quite twigged its a campaign revolving around them. But I digress; if Twilight was paranoid, we'd get the 10 foot poles and marbles, or she may end up using narrative tropes for help, ala Elan from Oots. Otherwise, she could twig that she might have a class now.
Though I do see that this is not much use immediately. These are more things for a little down the line.
Roll (context implies "she" would be Twilight, but the gratuitous vocabulary suggests Roll is the actual speaker)
I know gnolls are supposed to be stupid, but why would he risk his "good" diggers on a dangerous location?
ones...magic?" (question mark)
Unicorns get +2 Int, Roll. You might as well give up now.
them
Sunset's age may not be specified, but Twilight is definitely under age, since she was a human with time still left in high school.
7302076 Typos fixed!
Is there an age limit to divine marks?
7302260 If they come from Lashtada, yes.
I'm not complaining, but there was a brief moment of a code monkey 'not' involving Twilight that gave me pause. For some reason I also don't remember when Twilight got her Iruka scar... I must have missed it somehow.
Workin' in a gnoll mine...
No typos left that I could find.
Plans never survive the first encounter with the enemy, but I really hope that they all make it out in one piece. Roll seems like a good pony and it would be nice to know who she is when she's not a prisoner. But this is Everglow, and fortune does not always smile on the good people.
7302076
Underage... by the law of man. And not by every man law, and depending on her exact age possibly not even illegal in most of the first world.
Certainly not underage if the question asked is "is this person capable of reproduction?"
7302076
Presuming that you're referring to age of consent, that's not necessarily true. In the United States (where Equestria Girls is presumed to be set), the age of consent varies by jurisdiction; for a quick breakdown, see Table 1 over on this page. Unfortunately, we don't know what state Canterlot High is in, but since 34 states have the age of consent being 16, on average that's a 68% chance that Twilight lives in such a state.
Now, we also don't know how old Twilight is, but in the first movie we see that Flash Sentry is driving a car (when he shows up for the Fall Formal near the end of the movie), and he's presumably in the same grade as Twilight. Different states have different ages for granting various types of driver's licenses, but 16 seems to be a benchmark, even if it's possible to obtain a learner's permit earlier. As such, there's at least a plausible basis for assuming that she's of a similar age - this is compounded by the fact that we first meet "Sci-Twi" in the third movie (notwithstanding her cameo at the end of Rainbow Rocks), which takes place after the spring talent competition from Rainbow Rocks. If Flash was able to drive in the first movie, set six months before Rainbow Rocks, then that third movie is even further forward in the timeline, strongly suggesting she (and her peers) are at least sixteen years old.
So in all likelihood, Twilight is not underage.
7303774
The laws of man are what I'm talking about. The rules of this site specifically forbid any "Sexual content involving human/anthro characters under the age of 18." Maybe it could skate by on a technicality, and maybe he'll get banned. Is it worth the risk?
7304136
See above. The rules of this site are the only rules that matter for this discussion.
7305091
I think they're talking about smut, with that rule.
Saying that underage humanlike characters have or might have had sex is probably not against the rules... but explicitly sexualizing a scene with an underage humanlike character is. Also, Twilight is a pony when it would happen, which isn't against the rules.
I think it's at least enough grey that, if there's a problem, the mods would probably inform Silver and give him a chance to amend or take it out.
7305091 The problem there is that there's no guarantee that Twilight is under eighteen. My previous post determined that there's credible reasons for presuming that Twilight is not younger than sixteen, and certainly don't rule out she could be older ("strongly suggesting she (and her peers) are at least sixteen years old" - emphasis mine here). That's particularly true considering that, during a normal high school career, you can still be in attendance when you're eighteen (usually with just a few months left before graduating), which Twilight could very well be.
Hence, there's credible grounds for saying that no such rules violation is going on.