The Golden Record

by Pitro

Sending Out the Invitations

Sending Out the Invitations

Searing steam and finely ground soot fused together in the air of the dragon proving grounds. The acrid mixture, normally too hazardous and damaging for a normal creature to handle, was completely ignored by the giant, scaled behemoths. Their entire bodies had long since adapted to boiling temperatures that surrounded and engulfed them and most importantly, protected them from outsiders.

Watching younglings playfully spar with each other in a bubbling lava pit, the closest thing dragon kind had to a leader sat atop a giant sparkling throne of gems, occasionally reaching down and gnawing on a juicy ruby.

"If the griffins will not leave, then we must make them!" A stout green dragon roared, waggling his stumpy index claw at his seated peer. The blood-red dragon atop his jewels rolled his golden eyes as he remembered what was happening. "You know as well as I do that they are a barbaric tribal species, and will never listen to reason." Accompanying the aggressive dwarf of a dragon, three other of his kin stood behind him, nodding like sheep after every word. "Heed my words Gorr," he sneered, blowing a few small embers out his nose as he stopped pacing back and forth, "nothing good will come of allowing them to build their cities in the mountains of the frontier!"

Gorr was a new thing to dragon kind. Instead of the earlier, and extremely violent and xenophobic patriarchs that plagued dragon broods, Gorr returned early from hibernation, with a change of heart, and a drive to lead his species to peace with all of Equestria. Not a soul was informed what prompted the change of heart; Gorr kept it secret from everyone.

Though many males disagreed and challenged him for the throne of his tribe, Gorr always kicked them down from the hill, giving them a few broken bones and scales as a parting gift. He was gifted like that; his natural strength had been with him since he was born. The majority of opposite gender supported him fully, often using words like, 'diplomat' and 'benevolent' and 'handsome' to describe him.

That was why the little one was so peeved. The little green dragon, who was quadruple the age and half the size of Gorr, was a representative from a different tribe, with very old and different values. A tribe that valued brute strength and a lack of the ability to think for themselves a valuable, and when it came to mating, attractive quality.

His mood stemmed from the griffins deciding to spread out into the unexplored lands of the world and taking potential hibernation spots for dragons. Griffins built their cities either dug into the innards of mountains by tunnelling inside, then harvesting any of the valuable guts, or they lived on clouds, like the ponies. The tribe this certain snot green whelp hailed from, had frequently threatened to take things into their own claws and start cleansing the mountains, but crumbled every time Gorr reminded them, he and his tribe would stand by the griffins.

"How many times must I tell you Torgut? The land is unclaimed." Gorr forcefully rose from his throne, crushing his gems under his giant feet. His patience had worn thin the fourth time he explained this to him. "They have as much right to explore and build settlements as your tribe d-"

Never in his life did he involuntarily expel fire, not even when he was a teen, yet at that precise point, a soft, green flickering flame danced in the air as it followed his deafening belch. Never before had his flames ever been close to a hue as green as that. The four visitors watched the small flame spiral down to to their level, and jumped as it militarized into a tiny scroll. Torgut pounced, snatching it before Gorr had recovered from his stupor.

Tearing the delicate ribbon apart, Torgut's keen, predatory eyes flashed wide, and a devilish grin emerged on his stumpy snout.

"I can't believe it! The legendary Gorr is best friends with the namby pamby Princess Celestia!" His lackeys didn't respond quick enough and each received a harsh glare from their boss. Upon realizing what they were meant to do each began laughing, occasionally sharing an unconvincing glance that didn't go unnoticed by Torgut. "Don't you get it, you idiots! This terrifying wretch is pen pals with the Princess of the ponies!" He groaned as not one of them seemed to react or acknowledge what it meant. "It means he's weak! It means his whole tribe is weak! Why else would a dragon want to speak, or even know a pony!?" Torgut bellowed loud enough for Celestia herself to hear.

Before Torgut had a chance to turn around and laugh directly in the face of his rival, his windpipe was clamped shut by a strong, muscled claw. He gasped in pain, as he was lifted into the air and forcefully turned. Suffocating, his bulging eyes followed the claw along to a blood-red muscled arm, then to an equally muscled shoulder, then his heart almost stopped as he saw Gorr, the terror of the Dragon Lands, his ice shattering, heart stopping, fiery gaze glaring into his eyes. He didn't need to say it for Torgut to understand what he wanted. The terrified green drake released his weakened grasp on the scroll and was instantly dropped to the floor onto his side, gasping for air.

"Leave. Now." Gorr growled, his voice emotionless and low. "Unless you wish to never breath again." He didn't check to see if they did leave before reading the letter from Celestia. Upon reading the mysterious note, Gorr could only solemnly mutter, "oh, Celestia, what ails you?"

---

Loud clatters of metal tankards upon metal tankards filled the tavern, as a loud, hearty chant of the name 'Gilbo' welcomed an aged griffin onto the stage. In his right hand was a mug of mead, over his right eye was a black eyepatch and trailing up the side of his beak, a painful looking crack. Among the crowd, the younger males and occasional female, cheered and wolf called to the slightly inebriated bird, whereas the elders stood up from their chairs, saluting with either a talon to the forehead, or placing a talon over their worn hearts.

"Oi! Settle doon y' drunk bastards!" The griffin on the stage laughed over the booming crowd, immediately receiving their unbroken silence. "Even though the city has'ne been fully built yet, all o' y' deserve free drinks fer the whole night! On me!" Deafeningly loud drunken roars and his name being sung over and over returned to the tavern, even the oldest griffins joining in with the sloppy dancing and even sloppier singing.

All was well in the new mountain city of Ironwing. It didn't need to be said, a griffin town needed a bar before a hospital, and Ironwing proved that. Construction of the new city had began a few months ago, and even before plans were made for the first schools or water systems, a tavern's blueprints had been drawn, staff employed and stocked with various alcoholic beverages for the next two dozen years.

Gilbo, the middle aged, one eyed griffin returned to his seat, receiving more than enough claw shakes and salutes to count. Taking a huge gulp from his tankard of warm ale, his buttocks came in contact with a cushion someone swiftly placed under him as he went to sit down. Either the booze or the kind gesture warmed the avian's heart, though a part of him would of preferred the gesture went undone.

Even if he, or his subjects didn't believe it, he was a mere mortal, just like them. However, the tavern stools always left his booty worse for wear, and there was no harm in accepting something given to you.

Gilbo was, to put it bluntly, 'Supreme Leader of the Griffin Empire'. Not a title he chose himself, however. How did he, self proclaimed village drunk, become a supreme leader of a species?

Hell if he knew.

Maybe his supernatural talent at finding gold, or his ability to drink any stubborn griffin king under the table helped him reach the top. Actually, it was the second one. The first helped him own the most successful mining organization in the known land, but, the second reason was why he became leader. Ex-king and queen Blackclaw learned a valuable lesson that day.

'Don't mess with Gilbo'.

To every griffin under his relaxed, almost non-existent rule, Gilbo was a best friend, even if they'd never met in person before. The alcoholic slob had a heart of gold, and just by looking at him, you could tell he did. Charisma oozed from each of his aged, gray feathers, and sensibility laced each of his slurred words. Even as liquid courage replaced sixty percent of his blood stream long ago, it rarely affected his judgement or placed him in a bad mood.

Though, behind the cheerful smile of an aging drunk, lay a calm sober griffin, and behind him, was his cautious, nervous, and definitely realistic conscience. This was the part of him that came about only recently. Around about the time he realized, he was 'Supreme Leader of the Griffin Empire'. After the amount of booze he drank at the contest, it took a year for him sober up. 'Biting off more than he could chew' was a great way to describe what the old coot did, and he knew it. He was no politician. He was a drunk, over friendly, vulgar miner.

That's why he was out on the frontier, not in his swanky castle in the capital. The very idea of being in that overpriced, snooty room while his brethren risked their lives for the materials to make said room, made his flammable blood boil. Ruling behind a team of advisers who took hours to take minutes was a perfect way for the dictator to catchup on the sleep he lost over his people, though many were becoming tired of it. So he did the next best thing; join the city on the frontier. It may have been irresponsible leaving the capital and other towns and cities to the whims of his stuck up advisers, but they were not the ones risking their lives, and the miners needed all the help they could get, and he knew his peers that were temporarily replacing him didn't have the stones to make any drastic changes he wouldn't make himself.

Just as he was about to pour the last drops of his ale into his dry mouth, deafening alarm bells shook the foundations of Ironwing.

"Dragon incoming!" Screamed the panicked runner who burst though the bar door. Every griffin in the bar stopped dancing or singing, and slowly turned to the leader of their nation, their species. The alarm bell seemed to fade away for Gilbo and everyone in the bar, the only noise coming from a leaky bar tap behind the counter he so frequently sat. Without so much as an acknowledgement of the warning, he looked from side to side, gripped back around the handle of his mug and gulped down a beak full of ale. What felt like hours for each of the griffins in the bar past, when Gilbo finally placed the tankard down with a satisfied breath.

"What're yoo lassies waitin' fer? There's a bloomin' dragon oot there!" Pulling out two square bottles of liquor from nowhere, he threw caution to the wind by smashing one on the table, and gulping down half of the other. A loud, courageous roar of the tavern propelled the griffin leader to lead the charge, with a smashed bottle as a weapon.

Gilbo's heart pounded out his chest as he bolted through the streets of his city. The constant scraping echoes of talons upon metal pavements penetrated his feathered ears. Including everyone in the tavern roaring and running and flying behind him, following him to the battlements, stray terror-stricken citizens heard the rallying cries of a few hundred griffins, saw Gilbo leading the charge, and followed suit, grabbing the closest thing to a weapon they could muster.

Turning the corner to giant, steel door of Ironwing, Gilbo squinted his good eye when the blinding rays of light snuck through the corners. In one, strong, swift motion, the frenzied griffin smashed his remaining, intact bottle against the solitary lever that kept the perilous frontier, outside. Shards of brown tinted glass fell around the lever, which reacted to the strike by slowly arcing downwards. The impromptu, ragtag army of griffins stood silent as the loud clunking of the cogs, and scraping of metal on metal, echoed through the giant metal city.

Visions of 'what ifs', filled the minds of every griffin clutching onto the weapon they muster in such short time to defeat a dragon. Never before had a dragon been defeated by an army of griffins as small as Gilbo's, and never before had two, allied dragons been defeated in one bout, by any number of creatures that weren't, in fact, dragons. Only the drunken and the foolish could tell themselves the battle before them was not to be their last, and Gilbo was both, though he could not lie to himself. At the very least, he could smile and acknowledge, if he was to die, it was with his brothers and sisters defending the city he came to love in such a small space of time; the promise he pledged to keep on the arrival to the city of Ironwing, was to be fulfilled.

When the metal door of Ironwing finally stopped its wide arc, revealing the huge, snow covered, stone semicircle, the landing zone for griffins and the contraptions of his, technologically inclined subjects, rested beneath the snowy peak of the mountain, Gilbo's ears were filled with the steady sounds of talons scraping on stone. The mid evening sun lit the side of the mountain up, and all of the creatures standing upon it, including the aged, wise soldiers and miners of decades before, marched forward from behind him, lined up side-by-side, their frail wings too weak to keep them airborne in the crisp, freezing gusts of the Ironwing mountain. Their haggard and tired eyes stared forward, out towards the hulking dragon that rapidly closed in on them. Towards the blood-red scales, the golden eyes, the diamond strong teeth, the massive leathery wingspan.

He took to the air, pointing the serrated bottle of his right hand out to the skies, and at the rapidly approaching figure. "Everywoon! This little runt of a dragon thinks it can attack us griffins and leave withoot at least receivin' some of oor, friendly hospitality! We're all gonna make sure this dragon neva wants to see anothuh griffin featha again!" Powerfully pivoting in the air, Gilbo turned to face his people, so they could look into the eyes of their leader, as they charged head strong into, what could be the final moments of their life. "Let's make th' Mother proud, griffins."

Only the sound of whistling wind, nervous coughs, or chattering beaks were noticed by the head griffin, each noise sending a shiver through his body. Moments passed, the griffins finally realizing it was probably their final minutes, but none of them fled like cowards. Not while Gilbo was at the front.

Then, a loud noise. Maybe a cough. A belch perhaps. Or maybe, the clearing of a throat. But not, a griffin throat. A draconic throat. A throat that was about to funnel heats that could burn down cities on an army of a few hundred. Homemade shields made from wooden planks and scrap metal were aimed at the tiny figure of a dragon that could, and most definitely would catapult fireballs at them, as it reared its giant neck into the air. Expecting torturous flames to bellow down upon them, the griffin army prepared for their demise. Though what they expected did not come.

Instead of a painful fiery death, a word was bellowed across the land.

'Gilbo'.

Gilbo flinched as his name echoed through the freezing tundra that surrounded them. It came from no griffin, but a dragon. The invading dragon. A familiar dragon. A dragon who Gilbo began to recognize.

"Gorr?"

Comments

[Mcayon]

Awesome that you updated this.... just one question... what does this chapter has to do with the first one or the whole concept of this story?

[K9Thefirst1]

Oh man, Gilbo and his brood were hilarious!

Was anyone else hearing the Demoman?

1878398

Clearly, 'Tia wants to show off Earth's present to the other world leaders.

[Vegetation]

Yep! I detected a lot of black, Scottish cyclops in that chapter! Very nice!

[Enceledus]

MOAR!

[master109]

this is going to be interesting

[X-9321]

Dis gun be gud

[Pilate]

Holy crap, you wrote another chapter! Nice!

[Amneiger]

I remember reading about the Golden Record. Favorited so I can see where this goes.

[mythicXxpurexX]

I don't get what this chapter has to do with the first chapter.

[jayessell]

I think you mean 'materialized' as opposed to 'militarized'.
Darn you autocorrect!

[Ponynator]

1903157 They played the record and Celestia decided to inform the other countries, was it really that hard to think of that?

[Dogman15]

Too bad there's not more detail about them actually listening to the record, or following the instructions to decode the images on Side B.

[Lioth]

How long has it been since voyager was launcher in this story? 100 years? 1000 years? If humanity has survived to that point, if the ponies ever made contact, and we got pissed off, they would all die.