The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Quite The Journey

A freshly dried and fluffed Amber stood in the middle of the Immortal Dream's dining hall, the table raised out of the way so there was more room for standing. Everyone but Valey was there, the batpony having taken second dibs on washing up, with those who were less-familiar like Nyala and Slipstream hanging back on the room's benches and Gerardo presiding over the reunion with festive aplomb.

"This sure is a warm welcome," Amber remarked, her coat slightly spiky from dampness. "Glad you can all take a load off like this to hang out! With the way things were going since that Wallace fight, I was afraid I might have been a day too late..."

"A day too late for what?" Gerardo shrugged. "A friendly face is always uplifting in times of hardship, and I for one think this is a perfect way to take our minds off the frankly unknown ramifications of Wallace's allowing Valey to win."

"I'm just glad to see you again," Maple hummed, resting her chin on Amber's back. "How tired are you? You can't have flown right to us and been dropped off at the harbor. Do you need anything? Can we help?"

Amber stretched, rolling her shoulders. "Putting my hooves up sounds fantastic. And yes, it's been a long trip. What do you want to hear about first?"

"Anything and everything!" Gerardo declared, darting to the benches and grabbing some bench cushions for Amber to rest on, the library having been decided to be too small for that many ponies. "No matter what about, I think a story is in order."

"How did you leave Ironridge, for one," Shinespark cut in. "Are they really getting back in the air already?"

Amber dropped onto the cushions, letting herself bounce slightly. "Sort of. It's a priority," she explained, gesturing with a hoof. "I might have left out talking about it... and a lot of other things to hide the fact that I was coming." She blushed. "So a lot of the airships that were there got destroyed when the skyport was attacked, but new ones that were already making their flights arrived, and those ones were just out of power. There were actually a few ships that left before, when they were able to pool together the mostly-empty mana reserves of the incoming ships to power one to Yakyakistan and Varsidel, but those weren't priorities. Remember, when the city has no power, there are a lot of things more urgent than airships."

Shinespark nodded solemnly. "And it's not like they had no power at all. The Blueleaf extractor was still intact, just off the grid and not fit for powering the whole city at once."

"Yeah. They connected that to everything else first." Amber's eyes glazed over in remembrance. "Power first went to places where it could save lives... They had to keep an area climate-controlled and lit for everyone who was injured or elderly or needed it for medical reasons. Ironridge's population is pretty large, so that's a significant amount. You remember what the hospital was like in Riverfall, right, Maple?"

Maple folded her ears. "It wasn't my favorite place..."

Amber smiled comfortingly. "But there was only one of them. Ironridge had... a lot. Six, I think? Anyway. The rest of the power went to reconstruction, so I only got on a ship to leave once they started expanding capacity to do that. Getting other extractors built... Would you believe me if I said I didn't come straight here, but went to Varsidel first?"

Everyone listened a little more intently, and Gerardo beamed. "Ah, the war-torn land of high adventure and frequent strife! No one goes through Varsidel without a story to tell, I'll have you know."

"Well... I kind of did," Amber admitted. "It's because Varsidel is the closest civilization to Ironridge that's advanced enough to have mana wells. That's the only place they're able to fly to, which is precarious because of the war, but... it's better than nothing? I didn't actually do a lot there. Just got one flight in, stopped to refuel and came to the Empire. I could have gotten out to wander around, but I wasn't exactly a first-class passenger and if anything went wrong, they would have left without me. That wouldn't have been good."

"Ah, you never know!" Gerardo happily shrugged. "Perhaps you'd have taken up a calling and learned to survive either on the frontier of civilization or in the backwaters of a society that's pressured or decayed. You might have the constitution for it, I think."

"I think I'm glad you didn't get left behind in Varsidel," Maple countered, giving Amber a hug.

"I can see that," Amber giggled. "Anyway, like I said up above, Ironridge is building a new district to the north of the Earth District, on the other side of the river where the Steel District used to be. The ground there is essentially all shattered rock covered in jungle, with no even surfaces anywhere and tiny cliffs every few paces, but Arambai has taken control of managing the food resources, and since three quarters of the city is now unemployed, he just pays them to build it with food and housing. They're using metal salvaged from Sosa and the reserves that never got shipped out from mining, and wood from clearing out the jungle to try to make platforms and bridges and tame the terrain there. It's just called the new district for now, and will get a better name later. But it was already looking cool when I left!"

Starlight watched from a medium distance, briefly wondering if they were going to name it after her or her friends.

"Whew! So I went to Varsidel, though," Amber continued. "And then came here. It was a Griffon Empire ship, so they never wanted to stay there, which was good since apparently things are tense between the Empire and Varsidel right now. Ever since that incident you were there for when the Varsidelians who got their ships stolen to send Stormhoof's army to Ironridge got captured by pirates, well..." She rubbed the back of her neck uncertainly. "There are a ton of military griffons in Ironridge now, by the way. I made it sound like everyone's happy and making progress, but those guys are on edge and putting everyone else on edge too. They've settled in and are helping the city, but feel like they've left their home undefended and it's collectively making all of them nervous."

"Valey certainly doesn't mind," Senescey cut in from the back, suddenly averting her eyes. "I mean... and neither do I. The city guard being stretched thin makes things a lot safer here for our kind, actually. But there are a lot of rumors that Lord Stormhoof is working out a deal with Everlaste to garrison a large portion of their military presence here to make up for it..."

Starlight perked in interest. Everlaste were the bad guys, right? This was something she probably needed to be aware of.

"Hmm. Well, they were skittish enough I could see them trying to come back..." Amber mused. "That said, I don't know anything about what it's like in Ironridge now. I left a long time ago, not long after you finished with the pirates. It was under Arambai's counsel. I heard about the pirates from you, and he thought it might get a lot harder to fly Empire ships into Varsidel to refuel once they found out that had happened to their citizens. Especially since those were merchant ships that got confiscated to send the Stormhoof troops to Ironridge, and the fighters who were caught by the pirates were military specifically stationed on them to guard them from harm."

"Wait, slow down?" Slipstream hesitated, holding out a hoof. "Just to make sure I have this all straight in my mind... when we arrived here months ago, Stormhoof knew about the Yakyakistan invasion in Ironridge but not how it ended, since they heard from that mercenary leader who ran off?"

"Kero," Shinespark corrected, nodding. "But the Empire doesn't have an air fleet of its own, and relies on borrowed or rented Varsidelian ships to do its trading."

Slipstream took back over. "But that's been on the decline lately because Varsidel needs more ships for its war. So when they wanted to send their troops to head off a possible Yakyakistan expansion, they had to use ships that were trading between the Empire and Varsidel, against the Varsidelians' wishes."

"Yep," Amber sighed. "And the soldiers hired to guard those ships were given water ships to go back to Varsidel instead, which got attacked by pirates. And I don't know for sure, but now things are probably bad between the two nations."

Maple frowned. "But Varsidel is fighting their own war, so even though Stormhoof is unguarded right now, nothing will probably happen, right?"

Senescey shrugged. "Probably. Like I said, what I've heard is that Stormhoof is trying to play it safe and asking Everlaste to garrison here. They do have a lot of diplomatic ties between their houses, after all."

Jamjars blew a raspberry. "Sounds too complicated. You could just say everyone thinks everyone else is the worst and forget about troops and airships and diplomacy. It's not like we'll be doing any fighting."

"She has a point," Amber admitted, pointing to her suitcase of charged windigo hearts. "We don't have to stay anywhere, and this ship isn't slow."

"Unless there's someone else chasing us around we need to wait and be found by," Shinespark muttered, ears going down. "Like Grenada..."

Amber got up and put a hoof on her shoulder. "I heard about that. It sounded rough. I'm sorry."

"Yeah... thanks." Shinespark shook herself out of it. "And yes, everyone is right. We should keep everyone close at hoof just in case we have to leave, but otherwise not worry about it too much."

"So where else did you go?" Maple asked, changing the subject. "Straight to Stormhoof?"

Amber grinned. "Heh, no. Varsidel is way north of the Empire as well as west, so we flew into a place called Wilderwind. It's mostly empty nopony's land, but there's a floating cloud city for pegasi and griffons that's the real thing. It's kind of a mercenary hub that tries to stay neutral toward everything, almost more like a sovereign city-state like Ironridge than a border province in the Griffon Empire. It was impressive. And they had just enough solid surfaces that a few parts of it were accessible to earth ponies like me. I actually spent a few days there while making my way south to here. Now that was a journey."

Gerardo returned the grin, nodding along. "I've been to Wilderwind on quite a few occasions. Quite the place for those who need no help yet want no burdens. The last place anyone would mistake for good guys, yet the last to be called villains as well. And they're remarkably stable compared to the rest of the Empire, holding to a strong code of governance honor that makes one house generation almost indistinguishable from the next. Of course, it does take money to get by there, since what happens to those who can't afford the skies happens to be... well... the ground. And the ground is Gyre."

Maple blinked. "I thought Gyre was to the east of Wilderwind?"

"It makes no difference." Gerardo shrugged. "Is there a border? Yes, on maps. Does lower Wilderwind have governance? It's essentially left to do as it pleases. Does Gyre have governance? It may as well not. There's no real difference between the places, and everyone who lives there knows it, so why pretend otherwise?"

"Heh. Okay, then." Amber rubbed her mane. "Glad I didn't head down to the surface there. Haven't heard all that many good things about Gyre..."

"'Tis a tale of folly and woe," Gerardo lamented theatrically. "It sounds like your story isn't quite done, but is anyone in the mood for one of my own?"

Shinespark hesitated. "I'll go get more pillows."

Comments

[Hap]

Amber giggled. "Anyway, like I said up above...

OMG Amber is aware that she's in a story!

[ZanyZapper]

Sometimes I listen to this story in the car using that text to speech thing on the site. Does an ok job for the most part, even with names like Arambai and Senescey. But Shinespark comes out sort of like Sheena Spark.

Just thought that was funny. I'm easily amused!

[Mini-Joe]

oh boy cant wait for the inevitable visit to varsidel and subsequent participation in the war!!!

[Boopers]

Amber is awsome, what a nice surprise. That is an interesting turn of events. The locals surely won't be nice if they find out about her and Valey's relationship. And now that they also have power for flying around, they better be careful how they use that. After all the local goverment already confiscated a whole fleet of airships for their army.

[Quinch]

9389551
Well, she's essentially Pinkie Pie with more social awareness.