Seraphimus paced and paced in tight, lengthy circles along the edge of a platform. Starlight from above glinted off her pale feathers.
"Hrmmm..." Logan leaned back against the parked wagon. The lunar stones and strips of chaos metal clinging to the chassis lay still and dormant. "That's the very portrait of a confused chicken over there, lemme tell ya."
Wildcard was perched atop a monolith situated in the center of the suspended courtyard. He rested Bard's staff over the back of his neck while his metal and flesh wrists rested casually over the ends of the weapon. The entire time Seraphimus paced, the Desperado's goggles reflected her every movement.
"I mean... she can't possibly be fretting over Rainbow Dash's safety," Logan muttered. He shifted in place slightly. "Not that she'd have a reason to, of course."
Wildcard exhaled. He continued to stare, acting like a silent sentry.
Logan squinted at him. "... ... ...hey, Double-Yoo."
Slowly, the griffin turned to look at the other Job Squadder.
Logan raised an eyebrow. "You think she's still going to skip off on her own?"
Wildcard hesitated. Eventually—with a sigh—he dropped the staff and caught it in his prehensile lion's tail. Using his flesh and metal talons, he gestured in response.
Logan's brow furrowed. "Really? That's a crying shame. Still..." He shrugged with a sigh. "You know her better."
Wildcard shook his head. He hand-signed.
"No way..." Logan frowned. "I've just been... y'know... bridging the gap. The Austraeoh needs to have safe passage to the Midnight Armory, and what better way to make sure of it then to eliminate all threats—even diplomatic-like?"
Wildcard swiftly responded.
"Dude..." Logan smirked. "...not even!"
Wildcard raised an eyecrest.
Logan inhaled, frowning. "You knew her before she went batshit insane. I stand by what I said."
The Desperado was still at first, but eventually he motioned a response.
Logan contemplated that. He looked at the former Commander with a thoughtful sigh. "...I don't know whether or not to be scared of that. If she is indeed 'becoming someone brand new,' then we have every reason to be worried. Cuz—who the hell knows? That could be just as bad as it could be good."
Wildcard nodded. He looked at his former associate in the distance yet again.
"But one thing's for sure..." Logan's jaw clenched. "...we did get her to think. 'Cuz this?" He pointed at her figure. "This ain't 'fakin' it.'"
Silence.
Suddenly, Wildcard flinched. He flinched again, his headfeathers ruffling. He turned to frown at Logan, then gestured sharply with his claws.
"Huh???" Logan's lips pursed. "What are you babbling about?"
Wildcard repeated himself.
"Dude. Give me the benefit of a doubt," Logan grunted. "I'm classier than that!"
Wildcard insisted.
"Ya dumbshit! I haven't eaten anything in hours!" Logan growled. "I couldn't even let one that long if I tried! Much less so... so..." He blinked, gazing off.
A very confused Desperado began looking all around with similar confusion.
"... ... ...now I hear it too," Logan muttered. "...Goddess on a pogostick, it sounds like something sprung a leak somewhere. Listen to that whining..."
FWOOSH! Rainbow and Kepler flew up from below.
Wildcard did a double-take.
"Hey! Rainbow!" Logan smirked and trotted across the length of the platform. "Say, do your wings always make a prolonged whistling sound when you fly that fast—?"
"We gotta move!" Rainbow hissed. "Out of this city! Now!"
Seraphimus flashed the group a look, stopping dead in her tracks.
Wildcard gestured: "Why? What is wrong?"
"Swiftly!" Kepler stammered, rushing towards the dormant wagon. "We must accelerrate ourr vehicle and make forr the nearrest terrrestrrial strructurre!"
Seraphimus called from a distance: "What did you stumble upon...?"
Before Rainbow or Kepler could answer, Ariel flew up with a pale and trembling Flynn in her grasp. She unceremomiously dumped the breathless stallion onto the platform before Logan.
"Flynn!" Logan blinked. "Yeesh, baldy! Looks like you ran into a spider's web!"
"Dude!" Flynn gnashed his teeth, then scampered past him. "Don't even!"
Breathless, Rainbow flashed Logan a look. "How did you know...?!"
Logan shrugged. "Ehhh... Flynn always becomes a pale sweaty mess whenever he stumbles across them creepy crawlies—" He stopped in mid-speech.
Rainbow stared back at him, eyes twitching.
"... ... ..." Logan's muscles tensed. "What the Hell did you guys find down there?"
"Flynn!" Ariel shouted from where she fiddled through the supplies on the back of the wagon. "Kepler! Get this thing started already!"
"Friggin' working on it!" Flynn snarled.
"The rest of you—quick!" Ariel panted. "Grab as many pointy-things as you can!"
Swoooosh! Wildcard swiftly flew off to join them.
"Just give me a shout once you've got that chaos metal revved up!" Rainbow hollered across the platform. "I don't wanna be conkin' out because you ran that stupid thing into my flank unannounced!"
"Rainbow, girl..." Logan marched towards her. "...an update would be peachy-keen."
"What Logan said." Seraphimus nodded, landing beside the mare. "Would you care to elaborate?"
Rainbow looked at her.
Seraphimus stared back.
A gulp, and Rainbow murmured, "It's... not too late to go solo, y'know..."
Seraphimus' eyes narrowed. "What are you facing...?" Her feathered head suddenly cocked to the side. She blinked, then stammered: "That high-pitched sound. It is no ordinary melody..."
"Something's comin' up after us..." Logan asked, reaching back for his axe. "...isn't it?"
"Rainbow, I'm so sorry!" Fluttershy stammered, floating up before the mare. "Whatever lives down there—I didn't even remotely sense it until now!"
"She's not lying, darling," Rarity said. "Whatever it is—it was hidden far below the webbing. Beyond even our senses. Something we must have done most likely alerted it to our presence..."
"But it's definitely coming," Fluttershy said. "And with alarming speed."
Rainbow nodded. Taking a breath, she looked at Logan. "We found several non-pony fossils down there. And one of them—we think—still has living brothers and sisters in the depths of the city." Her eyes narrowed. "Lots of them."
"Uh huh..." Logan gripped his axe tightly. "Judging from Flynn's reaction, I'm betting we could squash 'em."
"Orrrrrrrr..." Rainbow winced. "...they could squash us."
"It matters little," Seraphimus said coldly. "If it can leave behind a fossil, then that means—whatever it is—it can be killed."
Rainbow shook her head. "Uh huh. This calls for farting away super fast. Totes fart-time, yo."
"At least assign Jordan and Logan to form a line of defense," Seraphimus insisted. "I will assist them."
"Look, Sera—"
"Don't call me—"
"IF—" Rainbow spun towards her, glaring. "—you're actually gonna stick around, then you're going to go about this my way! And when I say we fart... we fart!"
Logan shook a rear leg.
"Thanks Big Show."
"Any time, Toots."
Seraphimus fumed. "Need I remind you who has the greater combat experience?"
"Really?! Who?!" Rainbow frowned. "The angsty quail-puss who's butt I whooped all across Rohbredden?!"
"Now sugarcube..." Applejack drifted closer. "...she's bein' mighty helpful all of a sudden. Ain't no time to be lookin' a gift horse in the—" She suddenly disappeared.
Rainbow blinked as all her friends flickered into nothingness...
...and a dragonequus wearing a tacky palm-tree t-shirt and sunglasses appeared, holding a partially folded map. "Yooooooohoooooooooooo...?" Discord shoved the shades down the hairy bridge of his nose, exposing a pale layer of sunscreen. "...am I late to the beach party?" His red-on-yellow eyes blinked. "Oh, my mistake. I meant the deathly-ghost-city-populated-by-big-dumb-objects party?"
Rainbow's eyes twitched. "Rrrrrrrrgh..." Growling, she spun around. "Flynn! Kepler! I thought I told you guys to warn me before bringing the wagon close—"
"HRESSSSSHAAAAAA!" A flying set of fangs and claws flew into Rainbow Dash from above.
"Aaaaugh!" Rainbow raised her fetlocks up at the last second. WH-WHUMP! The suicide-diving troll shoved her to the floor of the platform.
Ariel gasped from a distance. Wildcard's goggles glinted in shock.
"Rnnnngh!" Rainbow struggled and wrestled with the rabid beast. "Hnnkkkt—!"
"HRESSSSH!" The drooling creature lunged its jaws straight for her neck.
Thw-Thw-Thwoooosh! Logan's axe flew. CHUNK! It sliced into the monster's side and pinned it to a derelict vehicle off to Rainbow's side.
Rainbow gasped and sputtered into a fresh fountain of black blood. She sat up, wiped the fluid from her face, and stared up with flickering eyes.
Hundreds of pale bodies skipped and jumped their way down the height of the spires, making for the platform where the Herald was situated. While a few dozen trolls fell limply to their doom, most of them were making a successful bee-line for the mare and her friends.
The chaotic stampede would be upon them in seconds...
"Guessssssssssssssss who's coming to dinnerrrrrrrrrr?" Discord folded his arms with a glinting, fanged smirk.
Oh.
Fantastic. I can't imagine anything better than a massive undercity filled with spider monsters.
Oh fun...now the trolls are back, too.
Hope those blighted buggers become spindler fodder.
Let's hope they can get the Trolls and Spiders to infight each other. That would be the easiest way to get out of this mess.
I was enjoying the anthropology but at the same time I'm relieved that friggin' finally something is happening
Y'know, I don't think enough of us give IC credit for writing one-sided conversations that aren't just "what do you mean (exactly what the other guy just said)". Wildcard's interactions with those who understand him are, for the most part, perfectly believable. And now that that's out of the way RUN RUN RUN OMG GET OUT AAAAAAH!
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And that's twice now your profile pic combined with your comment has made me choke on food with laughter.
The gift that keeps on giving
Ugh.
Not nearly as bad but still...
...oh good, just what they needed.
If the trolls see the giant spiders and run, then that should be a good clue about how bad things are about to get.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
Well, it's turning into a battle of three armies down here. That'll at least give the Herald some breathing room to find an exit. They just have to find it in the middle of an oversized city filled with thousands of trolls and super spiders all relentlessly trying to rip the flesh from their bones and drink their juices.
...I wonder what characteristics their venom possesses? Do you think it just paralyzes, or does it cause full cardiac arrest?
Man remember when we got here and it was all nice and quiet and everything was dead? Good times
Oh boy, the NOPE levels just got even higher!
Game over, man.
Suddenly, blood thirsty chaos trolls become the lesser evil.
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it probably has that venom similar to the brown recluse.
Because why just kill or paralyse when you can introduce a toxin that eats away at their skin?
Here we are ladies and gentlemen the battle of the century the trolly chaos trolls and the spindly spiders fighting for control of the lost city of butt wands! Place your bets now for who comes out on top and receives the coveted reward of: two death chickens, a wise wyvern, an all you can eat obese stallion, a pointy headed ninnymuggins, a fruity looking pegasus and a fawning filly!
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Thank you, Captain Biology.
I wonder if the Spindlers will give the group greater insight to the prophecy.
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Maybe it gives you several chapters long hallucinations.
Would be nice if teh web being organic was combustible in large enough amounts nd with a large enough thermal ignition source.
Kepler? time to make with the big badda Boom.
Everyone else? Forget booking it, this called for the complete Canterlot archives including the secret vault of unwritten knowledge.
Trolls again? wish they would learn a new tune already
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That...no. For one, it's been shown that pre-Sundering both sides of the plane were lit and inhabited. Only having one lit now is due to the limits of the alicorns' power. This wasn't a simple interior-only ringworld.
And there's no reason to think that this inherently massively-magical structure would use anything as primitive as 'jets'—that's just silly.
Oh Godammit.
And so our heroes find themselves trapped between a bloodthirsty army from above and a bloodthirsty army from below. Is escape impossible?
Find our in our next exciting episode "Stuck in the Middle With You" or "We Must Have Ticked Off the DM!"
Excrement --------> Rotary device
RUN
Trolls to the left of us, spoders to the right.
. . . Here we are, stuck in the middle with murderbirb.
Trolls vs Spiders!!!
I just want the spindlers to completely ignore the herald and just murder the trolls. I no think the spindlers be evil.
Also, giant spiders. Reminds me of derpy and carrot tops adventure. I really liked that art.
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The more you know. Thanks!
spuder spoder spader spider speeder
I knew those buggers wouldn't give up so easily. Hopefully the spiders wipe them out some
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börk börk börk börk!
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The Art is finally done. But be warned, this isn't anything like any previous Austraeoh fanart you've ever seen.
One of my innumerable passions is paleontology, so I correlated lots of data in my head to figure out what they should look like. If you wish for an in-depth look at my logic, just ask, and I'll answer to the best of my abilities. My apologies if you have difficulty reading the notes on the images; just ask, and I'll clarify.
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gup/images/4/43/Ancient_Pegasi_V1_Top_View_-_Edited.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/641?cb=20171127182350
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gup/images/2/2f/Ancient_Pegasi_V1_Side_%282%29.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/669?cb=20171127011227
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Sorry about the name, Time crystals might have been used in novels, but I was thinking of articles like this.
Time Crystals
And Escher cores are related to further advances in photonic nonlinear materials where the materials are formed in such a way as to manipulate energies in the voids between the materials, thereby moving the manipulation from the limits of material, to the limits of the equivalent effctects of removing the material and leaving the various energy fields behind.
Photonic Crystal Fibre.
No spoder named Charlotte? Please?
Heck.
Hopefully the trolls and spiders aren't friends with each other.
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Look at the skeleton of an archaeopteryx, or one of the other transitional early birds. Then look at a horse skeleton, and adapt the rear leg architecture a bit.
You're on the right track, just need some revisions. A few iterations of practice and it should be really impressive!
i.pinimg.com/originals/02/73/d3/0273d37a75945415eca58f6273101911.jpg
On the plus side, every line of troll-focused writing is less screen time for the spiders. Going by the current status quo, the situation has just improved.
Spider troll, spider troll, does whatever a spider troll does.
Spider troll, spider troll, does whatever a spider troll does.
Also, we need a banhammer for these guys
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Your images are broken for me, not sure what is up with that. A real shame, I wanted to see what they look like.
I'm gonna call it. The spiders are intelligent, and communicate by music.
The spiders will catch the herald along with a bunch of trolls, then drive away the rest of the troll attack. Just before being eaten, the Herald (or someone within it, perhaps Seraphimus) will sing, to let the spiders know they are intelligent creatures as well.
Their first non-hostile encounter on the dark side?
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Sing her song and become a spider.
Spiders and trolls? Oh my~
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They're on a wiki userpage; does that help clear it up a bit?
I totally gope the spiders become allies to the Herald and are just that desperate to talk with someone new after all that time... But yeah, keeping a distance at first and throwing them trolls sounds like a very good idea, because they would certailny be desperate to eat after all that time.