Equestrian culture loves cutie marks. Filly Starlight Glimmer hates them and never wants one. So, she leaves Equestria.
After an eternity of marching, Selma's guard convoy came to a halt. Maple shook herself back to alertness; he was carrying her at an unfortunate angle that caused her blood to rush to her head, making focusing hard. Nobody was speaking. Instead, they stood at a doorway, the blue stone of the corridor's natural walls abruptly parting before a slab of metal. A security console stood to the side, and Selma approached it, pulling out a card and sliding it into the machine. There was a click, a hazy green light lit up, and the door slid open.
The guards with the crates moved through first, Selma watching them lazily. Maple stole a glance at him, ensuring he wasn't looking her way, and then stared hungrily at the card key in its slot. A thing like that would be invaluable in an escape attempt, and half of it was sticking out of the machine...
Selma turned, subconsciously moving Maple along with his head's motion. She licked her lips as she passed the console, and stretched as hard as she could... and felt the tip of her tail brush along the surface where the card was. Success. So long as he didn't blame her when he inevitably noticed...
His aura tingled along the slot where the card had been, and out of the corner of her eye saw him stare suspiciously at it... and then at her. Pretending to be just as defeated as she had been for the duration of the trip, she slumped, acting as if she didn't even register the change in terrain. Two seconds passed, and then three... and he shrugged and looked away. Maple kept herself from breathing a sigh of relief as he moved through the door with her and let it shut behind him; apparently he was too proud to even ask the guards if they had seen it. Served him right.
The fortress was all metal from there, a grated floor covering a trench for pipes that no longer had to run along the ceiling. It really looked more industrial than military, almost like a control room or what she imagined to be the inside of a giant ship. Cool air rushed through the corridor with enough force that Selma tightened his aura to prevent her from blowing out; either the tunnels were excellently ventilated or were ventilation ducts themselves.
On the walls, occasional support beams ran vertical, a mixture of pipes and reinforced crinkles in the metal plating designed to keep them from buckling. Maple's tale swished against several, and she entertained the idea of grabbing hold and yanking herself out of the captain's grasp. It remained a fantasy, however, as the reality was there would be nothing she could do even if she succeeded.
Several turns and a few more open rooms later, they came to another door, this time not requiring a card reader.
Selma flicked a lever, and it slid open. Beyond, a dim, tall natural cavern formed, a forest of pipes running floor to ceiling. "Leave the crates here," he commanded. "And then do whatever you will. I have some words for the prisoner I want to share in private. Make it quick!"
The guards hastily deposited the crates at the back of the room, where they blended in with a host of other random materials likely left in storage. Then they scuttled out... and with a pulse of magic from Selma's horn, the door slid closed, and he and Maple were alone.
"I see the way you're looking at me," Selma said lowly, the light of his horn the only source of illumination in the room. Turning Maple so that she faced him, he continued, "Unfair, you think. Cheater. Lawbreaker. Scoundrel, even. Amusingly enough, what I don't see is liar."
Sturdy ropes snaked out of the shadows, led by his aura, and Maple quickly found herself vertical, back pressed to a pipe, hind hooves barely able to touch the ground. "Because," Selma whispered, "I lied. I knew Gerardo was coming, sooner or later. I knew about his job, his delivery. And I have a very good idea of what's in those precious crates... and their contents are dangerous." He shook his head. "Think I was unfair, aggressive, or picking a fight all you want. But what I am is the protector of all of Ironridge... and this was a threat that had to be dealt with."
He leaned in closer, the illumination of his own horn casting unnatural shadows on his face. "You're obviously not from around here, so I'll let you in on another secret. Ironridge isn't like the rest of the world. In Ironridge, it's kill or be killed... and I am not afraid to play dirty to win. Nobody cares how nice you were after you're dead."
Maple gasped as the ropes constricted around her chest. "If you knew it was just him, then... ugh! Then why did you arrest me?"
"Because you dropped a brick on my head," Selma growled. "I didn't say I wasn't petty and vengeful. Now you're going to stay down here until those crates are no longer a danger to me and my city... and then I just might let you go." He smiled in the dim light. "I do have a soft spot for pretty faces, after all. Such a shame you had to get caught up in the wrong crowd. In fact... how did you come to be associated with that griffon?"
Maple glared back at him. "Leave me alone! I don't care what your reason is, and I'm not telling you! You're a jerk!" She wanted to add and my filly is out there, but strongly felt his attention didn't need to be drawn to that.
Selma shrugged. "I can do that, too. In fact, until this random headache clears, I might just forget about you altogether. But that won't be a problem." He prodded twice at her exposed belly with a curious hoof. "You look well-nourished. I'm sure missing a meal or two won't hurt."
"Don't touch me!" Maple hissed, trying and failing to lean away.
"Once again, your loss," Selma said, turning away. Freed from his aura, Maple sagged in her restraints. "Warning you about your griffon's goals... giving you a free excuse to part ways with him... you could always see this as an act of favor, or generosity. If you benefit nothing from this, you have only yourself to blame. Good night, pony."
The door closed behind him, sending the room into total darkness. Maple's fuzzy ears twitched, listening to the echoing vibrations of his retreating hoofsteps... and then her cutie mark activated, pocketing the ropes that bound her to the pipe. She dropped back onto all fours, plus one rope and a card key, briefly massaging the spot Selma had jabbed as if his touch left a stain that could be wiped away. It was time to find her filly and make sure she was safe.
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Clever trick with the ropes.
Hope Starlight pops out of the crate soon or she and Maple are going to miss each other.
Also thanks to The Simpsons I keep forgetting that Selma is a dude here.
HAX!
too
Maple could benefit from being more of a hoarder. How much stuff can she fit in her cutie mark, anyways?
8915679
think she mentioned back in the hotel room that she can store a volume of objects equivalent to the size of her body.
Okay, chapter 100.
...I'm sorry to say I'm going to drop the story here.
Not for anything in this particular chapter, but for how things have been feeling in general. i.e: nothing happening. And when something does happen - like with the Chancellor just dismissing our griffon buddy like that, adding some intrigue - I feel as though it's too abrupt and then nothing's made of it. For a story with such short and rapid update schedules, its pacing seems slow and distant. And I was fine with that earlier, the world was interesting, the style was unique, and I hadn't really experienced a story quite like this beside Austraeoh.
But after the first arc... well, after Starlight got out of the wilderness, really... it stopped being so descriptive. Our close conneciton with Starlight dirfted as we changed from "showing" language to "telling" language. Even in the last chapter where there was great stuff with the Chancellor, afterward there were block pararaphs of exposition. Exposition here and there every now and then is fine and good, but allt he time? No. That doesn't really work.
Furthermore, the characters are starting to feel flat. I can't actually tell you what makes Maple a unique individual, for instance. She seems... almost generic, really. Starlight and Gerardo aren't, but even they fall into the trap of speaking... flat. Yes, that's the word. flat. A lot of their dialogue is flat, without emotion. Sure you can tack on an emotion tag at the end, but the words themsevles read almost monotone, or with barely emotion. It doesn't seem natural in a lot of cases, more like a "this needs to be said by someone and I just happen to be the guy around to say it."
And it was fine for a time. I made it 100 chapters in, after all. Unfortunatly, this story is just too long to keep me invested with this storytelling style. My apologies, Czar, I know you put a lot of effort into this. It's hard to make something this big.
Maybe I'll see you around, though, fellow wordsmith.
-GM, master of Haggen Daas.
9842849
Alas.
A lot of TOW's intrigue is focused on how pieces fit together rather than the pieces themselves, more about the why than the what. I made that as a conscious design decision at the story's start because I wanted the payoff of extensive climaxes with huge numbers of moving pieces and unique stakes for every character that took many chapters to play out, and at the end of the day, I feel like I got what I wanted. Unfortunately, that has trade-offs, and at this point in the story I was too busy trying to make sure the climaxes would come together, period.
Characters giving exposition was because putting the protagonists on the ground and having them learn all this by seeing it in action takes too much time and distracts too much from the overall city when the story is already as huge as it is. Sharpie talks about weapons sales instead of Gerardo poking around and discovering this long-term trend of transactions himself because his story isn't about investigating fraudulent transactions and wasted money, it's about trying to get back his friends, but that's still a major part of the picture concerning Valey and Selma's motives and why his friends were captured in the first place. This is also why there's intrigue that seems to go nowhere, like with Dior: at the rate of planning this story requires, it's very difficult to plan out in advance mysteries small enough to be resolved the chapter they're introduced, and short chapters tend not to be conducive to carrying tension well between each other. I feel like this got better when I got my rhythm more solidly together and started writing 3-4k chapters instead, but intrigue always tends to be resolved in a later chapter as part of a bigger twist rather than a twist itself as a result. Another side of this is that it was difficult to gauge how much readers are picking up on when the story's following was tiny and there weren't many detailed comments. I was scared of having a twist fall flat where I said "X is like Y because Z" and the reader response was "Wait, X is like Y?"
That said, there sure were times when writing this arc where it didn't feel satisfying to write. Eventually, I decided that even if it meant the climax I wanted, it wasn't worth pressing on if the story was going to be ending-oriented at the cost of being passive and not eventful enough about everything else. I did wind up gambling more on my ability to pull things together in the end... but it didn't happen by this chapter and too late is still too late. Maybe someday I'll try making an edited/abridged version in which I do that sooner, but the headache of figuring out how to publish that alone makes it not worth it at all.
As for the characters, I'm really not sure what to say. In most of the feedback I get, they tend to be the part of the story most people like the most, and why a lot of people keep reading. They're the entire point of the story for me, too, and most of the plot arcs are built around either furthering their development or using their nuances to drive conflict.
Anyway. I'm still reading yours, work schedule willing, so I'll see you around. Thanks for all the feedback.
I like how Selma thinks they'll win Maple's favor with a vague warning about their designated travel griffon after tying her up to a wall.
[insert All Might's "Only villains do this" meme]
Also I think Maple just got a +1 in stealth, I like the idea she can just hoover useful quest items straight into her butt pocket... Wait let me rephrase that!