Chapter 7
Daring Do
“What do you mean we aren’t allowed to go inland?!” I slammed my hooves down on the bureaucrat’s desk. Various objects on the desk jostled at the impact, and the reedy-looking zebra on the other side snapped out a hoof to keep a pen from rolling off.
The clerk shot me an unamused glower as he straightened a stack of papers. “Exactly as I said: we don’t allow tourists to just go gallivanting around the forest. It’s just asking for trouble.”
“Now I know that to be quite untrue,” Capital objected. “My uncle was allowed to visit this country a couple of decades ago, and it didn’t cause any trouble.”
The bureaucrat shrugged. “Maybe that was the case before, but it’s not now. The last time we allowed a bunch of tourists to go in the jungle it was a hoofful of kids vacationing during their college break.” His eyes narrowed. “All we found were some half-eaten bodies.”
I ground my teeth together. I really hated bureaucracy. There was always someone there to tell you no, or that you had to pay out if you wanted to do anything. When we’d come to the central pyramid of the little port town, we’d planned on going right to the mayor to get everything sorted out, but instead we’d been stalled by a clerk.
“Is that so?” I glowered at the clerk, not willing to back down. “Then you should know we’re not some dumb tourists with no clue what we’re doing. We’re experienced explorers and archeologists, and we’re well prepared for our expedition. Just check our credentials and how many people we’ve brought to do this.”
“The Mayor’s instructions are quite firm on the matter,” the clerk said with bureaucratic obstinacy. “No one from outside of Haztuha is allowed to go into the forest. That’s both for your protection and for the people of Haztuha. We don’t need some half-cocked adventurers heading off and getting the Dromaed riled up or awakening some buried supernatural evil that’ll threaten the whole continent. More than one settlement along the coast has already been wiped out by that type of thing, and we’re determined not to have it happen to us.”
“But all we want to do is go on an archaeological expedition! It’s not like we plan on causing trouble.” Well, we did kinda want to go into the Dromaed’s forbidden city, but we wanted to at least try to ask permission before going there. Ugh, bureaucracy.
The clerk shook his head. “No means no. Now if you don’t mind, I have other people who have business.” He waved for us to get out of the way.
I bared my teeth as I felt my blood boil. “Hey! You can’t just brush us aside like—“
Capital’s restraining hoof grasped my shoulder. “Come now Daring, no need to cause a scene.” He flashed the clerk a bright smile. “Could we perhaps schedule an appointment with the Mayor? I’m sure we can clear things up with him after a short conversation.”
The clerk eyes narrowed as he frowned. “The Mayor is a very busy stallion. He doesn’t have time to see everyone that isn’t happy with the laws of the port.”
“That’s quite alright.” Capital pulled out a business card and placed it on the desk. “Tell him Lord Capital Idea, heir to the Marquess of Westmarch would like to see him over dinner, if at all possible. I have some absolutely divine cigars as well as a bottle or two of Bluegrass bourbon I wouldn’t mind sharing after the meal. If nothing else, we can trade a story or two and enjoy one another’s company.”
The clerk frowned as he looked over the business card. “The Mayor already has plenty on his plate to deal with.”
“Just pass along my message, please? Do that and I promise we’ll be out of your mane.”
The bureaucrat huffed but nodded. “Very well. I’ll pass your message on, but I won’t promise anything after that.”
“That’s all I ask. Good day to you, sir.” Capital moved towards the door. “Come along Daring, let's leave him to it.”
No small part of me wanted to keep arguing with the clerk until he gave us what we wanted, but in the end I thought better of it and followed Capital. “Well isn’t this off to a great start?” I groused once we were out of earshot. “Stonewalled by some self-important bureaucrat.”
“Oh, he’s just following his instructions.” Capital waved a hoof casually. “You can hardly blame him for not wanting to get into trouble at work. Besides, it’ll work out in the end. After a friendly chat with the Mayor he’ll see it our way and let us continue on our way.”
“I hope it’ll be that easy,” I said.
Capital gave me a smile. “I’m sure the Mayor is a reasonable fellow who just wants to protect the people that come to his town.”
“Shame we don’t have forever to wait around town to sort things out with this guy.” The clock was ticking, and Ephemera was no doubt up to something—or more likely, several somethings. I just knew it had to be her who blew up the Buried Treasure. I couldn't prove it, but the incident had her hoofprints all over it. We were just lucky we hadn’t been on the ship when it’d gone up in flames. Not everyone else had been so lucky; Captain Hazim had gone down with his ship from the news on the street, and our expedition had lost several crates of supplies. Next time I saw Ephemera I was really going to need to give another introduction of my hoof to her face.
And while Ephemera was bad enough, Puzzle’s presence only made things worse. The guy was an order of magnitude more dangerous than a dozen of Ephemera’s usual brand of cheap thugs. The guy actually had a working brain, for one, and he definitely knew how to fight. And unlike Ephemera and lot of the creeps I’d gone up against, he had self control. Part of the reason why I’d confronted him during the voyage was to see if I could get under his skin for the inevitable round two, but he kept his cool the whole time.
Yeah, he was cool—cool enough to stick a dagger right between my ribs when I wasn’t looking with no hesitation. That knowledge made my blood run cold. This journey was getting more dangerous by the day, and the sooner we put some distance between us and Ephemera the better.
But first things first: we needed to get a plan going, and Capital might be able to do what he said he could. If not, then we’d come up with a Plan B. I’d improvised plenty of plans over the years, and if anything we could always sneak out of the town. Not ideal, especially if we needed to come back here to go back to Equestria, but I was reasonably sure we could pull it off.
“Alright, let's check up on how everypony’s doing with salvaging our supplies,” I told Capital. “Maybe by the time we’re done the Mayor will have gotten back to us.”
“Don’t worry so much.” Capital patted me on the back. “Everything will turn out alright in the end, trust me.”
I really wished I could.
Puzzle Piece
This one wasn’t happy. Recent events didn’t give this one many reasons to think things were moving in a positive direction. The Ephemera-mare was proving to not be the employer this one could have hoped for; she was short-sighted, vindictive, petty, greedy, and quite possibly wholly incompetent, not to mention her employee relations needed work. The trip on the Buried Treasure had certainly showed her limitations. Instead of letting this one do its work quietly, the Ephemera-mare had intentionally exposed it. What’s more, her schemes had resulted in the loss of the compass we needed to reach our goal. The Ephemera-mare was quickly proving to be an outright liability. That was a big problem when she was in charge of this expedition.
Now this one had to figure out how to get at least one of those greenseer compasses back, because otherwise we were going to be stuck following the Do-mare and the Capital-stallion to our destination. That was less than optimal and had plenty of ways it could go wrong. No, we needed to shift this back in our direction.
That would have been easier without an employer like the Ephemera-mare. In truth, this one seriously considered dropping the whole matter and going its own way.
“So why didn’t you?” I asked him. “Not like you couldn’t have slipped away if you really wanted to. She didn’t even know you were a shapeshifter. You could have changed how you looked and she never would have known the better. As far as she could have been concerned, you would have disappeared off the face of the planet.”
Puzzle shrugged. “There was still the contract this one had made with her. This one didn’t like the idea of breaking it just because it didn’t like her personally.”
Daring snorted. “I think this goes beyond merely not liking Ephemera. She was an evil nag who’d been blowing away every advantage you’d been giving to her on a silver platter. Just because you’ve got a contract with someone doesn’t mean you’ve gotta be a dummy about it. She was bad news, and you could see that. Nothing good was going to come out of working with her.”
Puzzle sighed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “That is true, but to be honest, this one didn’t really have anything else going for it at the time. This one had probably gotten away from the bounty hunters after it, but it didn’t really have a plan past that. This one needed money to build anything up for itself, and the Ephemera-mare had it. Though that money was starting to not look like it was worth the trouble.”
“Sounds like you could have done better for yourself,” I observed, pulling another drink out of the cooler. “I bet you could land on your hooves anywhere if you tried.”
“This one knows that now, but back then this one wasn’t so sure.” Puzzle twirled his shishkebab as he pondered. “So this one was considering its options. One of them was to dump the Ephemera-mare, then work its way to the Zebrican Empire.”
Kukri pressed her lips together as she stared at Puzzle. “But why didn’t you just quit and help the Do-mare?” She smiled brightly at Daring. “She could have used your help against that evil nag.”
Puzzle chuckled at the suggestion. “For one, the Do-mare didn’t have much in the way of money. Perhaps the Capital-stallion had the money to pay for this one’s services, but it seemed unlikely he would when, at best, this one would seem like the type to casually switch sides when the going got tough. At worst, they would suspect this one of being a spy for the Ephemera-mare—admittedly, for very good reasons.”
Kukri frowned. “This one guesses.”
“And if this one is going to be honest,” Puzzle continued, “it was intrigued by the challenge of the situation. At first this one had hoped it could advise the Ephemera-mare to be better, though that idea was pretty well crushed by this point. There was also the Do-mare. Now she was a rare challenge, and no small part of this one still wanted to beat her. Finally, this one was genuinely interested in seeing the City of Giants. This one had always wanted to go on a grand adventure—and there it was, ripe for the taking.”
“I can understand that last part,” Daring said with a lopsided grin.
Puzzle frowned as he studied his drink. “The thing though is that while the Ephemera-mare wasn’t the smartest pony this one had ever met—“
“Serious understatement,” Daring groused.
“—she was still dangerous,” Puzzle continued. “Destroying the Buried Treasure and killing Captain Hazim proved that. She had proven to be inherently vindictive and vicious. How do you think she would react to this one trying to put in its two weeks’ notice?”
“Probably not very well,” I admitted. “Your severance package might have been something a bit more literal than you would’ve preferred.”
“So why not just sneak away?” Daring asked again, scooping up another bottle from the cooler. “Again, she didn’t know you were a shapeshifter, and that’s something you could’ve used to your advantage.”
“Perhaps, but at the time this one wasn’t sure what the full breadth of the Ephemera-mare’s abilities were. She had produced a hoofful of magic items, and she likely had more hidden away. One of them might have been a means to track this one. Certainly she had some method to track the Do-mare and keep abreast of what she was up to. Then there was one particular bit of information that intrigued this one: her mysterious patron.”
“He’s been mentioned a time or two, yeah.” I rubbed my chin. “So you wanted to know who he was?”
“Exactly,” Puzzle said. “This one didn’t know who this patron might be or how they would feel about this one breaking the contract. That could be risky, so instead this one started forming a different plan. It was a bit vague, but that was because this one wanted to keep its options open: it would play along with the Ephemera-mare and pretend to be a loyal follower. From there, if the Ephemera-mare and her patron continued proving to be poor employers, this one would do what it needed to. This one could gather more intelligence, discover the Ephemera-mare’s weaknesses, and discover the patron’s identity. From there, it was just a matter of finding the right opportunity to act.”
“That sounds clever except for all the places where everything could go horribly wrong,” Daring pointed out. “Like Ephemera doing something dumb and getting you killed.”
Puzzle conceded the point with a nod. “True, this one would have to think fast, be quick, and have more than a little bit of luck. But if this one played its cards right then it could come out ahead. Even if this one only had a murky idea of what the endgame would actually look like.” Puzzle’s mouth spread in a grin. “There was also the fact that the Ephemera-mare had a terrible track record against the Do-mare. Based on her past history, this one merely had to wait for the right moment to turn on her.”
“So you decided to play the long game,” I observed. That certainly sounded like Puzzle. It was one of the reasons why I’d initially been a bit worried about working with him. He wasn’t above playing someone if it suited his goals, and this was starting to turn into a story where he was doing just that by the looks of it.
“It seemed the best way to do things,” Puzzle confirmed. “It kept this one’s options open, and sooner or later the Ephemera-mare should make some critical error. Not to mention it would give this one more time to figure out who the Ephemera-mare’s patron was. Though first this one needed to take care of a few things before that opportunity would present itself.”
This one needed to get the greenseer compass if it was going to convince the Ephemera-mare to keep it around. Given what happened to some of her late minions and Captain Hazim, she wouldn’t take this one’s failure well. Trying something then and there seemed unwise. The Do-mare would be wary of this one. Best to give her some time to not think about this one. Plus this one had something it wanted to address before it took on any other task: its hunger.
This one’s jar of thyloplasm was nearly empty. Pangs of hunger ran through this one from the careful rationing it had subjected itself to. Best to do what this one could to at least let it be okay for a few days. That being the case, this one headed over to the town’s, um...
Puzzle’s eyes flicked to Kukri, whose face instantly split into a mischievous grin. “You went to the brothel, didn’t you?”
Puzzle sighed. “Yes, this one went to the brothel.”
“Why are you embarrassed?” Kukri asked, keeping up her grin. “You’re a grown changeling.”
“It isn’t for this one’s sake that it’s embarrassed,” Puzzle groused, rolling his eyes.
This one managed to make some arrangements to feed itself. It ended up draining the prostitute of more love than it really liked to, but this one didn’t know when it would get an opportunity to feed like that again. There probably weren’t going to be many opportunities for it to feed itself in the jungle, which was of little concern to this one. Unfortunately, this one was short on options at the moment, and no doubt the Ephemera-mare would want to leave the port before long to get going and stay ahead of the Do-mare. The best this one could do was to pay the prostitute a substantial tip for her troubles and leave it at that. Apologizing for the headaches and fatigue she was probably going to suffer from for the next couple of days wasn’t really an option, since that would have to involve this one revealing its nature.
In any event, since this one was fed it could concentrate on what to do next without being constantly distracted by its hunger. This one didn’t have a lot of time to get the greenseer compass back, which meant this one was going to have to go with something quick and dirty to achieve its objective.
Thankfully, it wasn’t that difficult to find. This one had placed a tracking gem on the Capital-stallion’s butler back on the Buried Treasure, and using that gem found the butler alongside his master and the Do-mare. They were in the town’s marketplace, buying food and a variety of other goods presumably in preparation for their trip further inland.
Seeing the opportunity, this one slunk its way into an alleyway and transformed into a zebra mare of fairly nondescript appearance. That done, this one then stepped into the marketplace, appearing as just another sailor looking to buy some fresh produce after a long voyage of eating ship fare. This one made a show of examining the wares of the various stalls, and even bought some chopped up fruit to snack on as it worked its way closer to the Capital-stallion. To this one’s pleasure, it saw the compass hanging from his neck. It would have made things more complicated if it hadn’t been. Unfortunately, the Do-mare was standing right beside him. That could be troublesome.
This one played for time, pretending to shop for a few minutes, and even striking up a short conversation with one of the vendors. But the Do-mare stuck right next to the Capital-stallion as they moved between stalls. This one considered waiting for a better opportunity to strike, but decided against it. The longer this one stood around, the greater the risk it would be noticed. The key to a disguise was to never be suspected to start with; you never wanted your quarry to think they were being followed.
One never got anywhere without taking some sort of risk, so this one took a risk. It casually walked up to the Capital-stallion and made itself look like it was distracted looking at the goods being sold at a nearby stall. This one bumped into the Capital-stallion, doing its best to make it look like an accident.
This one placed its hooves on the Capital-stallion, and while appearing to correct itself slipped the necklace and the compass off of him. “Sorry,” this one said in an absent-minded manner, as it slipped the compass into its bags before anyone could notice.
“Quite alright,” the Capital-stallion said with a friendly smile.
This one moved to walk past him in an attempt to make the incident look innocuous when the Do-mare narrowed her eyes. “Hey!” she cried out before this one had taken more than a couple steps. “Stop right—”
She hadn’t even finished saying ‘Stop’ before this one bolted. This one silently cursed as it ran as fast as it could down the street. This was exactly what this one had worried about when it planned to steal the compass off the Capital-stallion. It seemed that the Do-mare had been more wary than this one could have hoped for.
Daring snorted. “You think that’s the first time I’d seen that little pickpocketing trick? Please, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Right,” Kukri smiled up at her other hero. “The Do-mare had her bitbag stolen during the first Young Daring Do book.”
Daring sighed as her ears flattened. “Well, Yearling writing that makes me look a little less cool.”
Puzzle chuckled before continuing the story.
This one didn’t bother looking back to see if it was being pursued. That would only slow this one down and risk it tripping on something. Best not to take that risk at the start of a race. Instead this one took a sharp turn and ran for a nearby alley. If this one could break the line of sight between it and the Do-mare long enough it could either change its disguise or use its invisibility bracelet to make its escape.
This one had almost made it to the alley when the Do-mare suddenly darted out of the sky, coming to a sliding halt in front of the alley entrance, forcing this one into a sudden halt to keep from slamming into her.
“I said stop right there, thief!” The Do-mare grabbed for this one, but this one’s own hoof snapped out to grip one of her legs. This one twisted the leg, throwing her off balance as it shoved her face-first into the alley wall. For the briefest moment this one was tempted to put the Do-mare down with its shock gauntlet, but quickly dispelled the idea. This one needed her alive and well to counter the Ephemera-mare later.
But that moment’s delay was all the time the Do-mare needed to act. One of her wings swung at this one’s head, and this one ducked to avoid the worst of the strike. With that opening, the Do-mare flapped her wings, shifting up in my grip, and kicking off the alley wall, flipping her over this one as she broke this one’s hold on her.
Still, the exchange created a half-second opening that let this one flee down the alley, but before it could reach the exit the Do-mare had once again flown over this one to block it. She glared at this one as she shouted, “You’re not going anywhere!”
This one rather disagreed. It was obvious by now this one wasn’t going to be able to outrun its opponent, at least not where she could easily fly, so this one changed the dynamic of the situation. It turned to an alleyway door and tried the handle. This one lucked out and it opened. Another cry for this one to stop sounded as it bolted through the doorway.
This one found itself in a warehouse, with crates and other wares piled up in neat rows extending further into the building. A few workers startled at my sudden entrance. But this one didn’t have much time to reflect on its surroundings as it slammed the door shut—or close to it, the Do-mare’s shoulder slammed into the door with a crack, keeping it open. The impact nearly caused this one to stumble back, and it pushed harder to try and lock the door. The Do-mare was pushing every bit as hard as she grunted with effort.
Seeing that it was stuck in a stalemate, this one changed tactics. This one jerked the door open and the Do-mare stumbled forward with a cry of surprise. This one lashed out and kicked one of the Do-mare’s legs out from under her, sending her tumbling to the ground. Next it grabbed a nearby shelf and tipped it over to trap the Do-mare underneath. The Do-mare’s eyes widened as the items on the shelf started falling on her, and she pushed to roll herself out of the way, barely getting out in time.
This one was starting to become irritated with just how fast the Do-mare was as it started running yet again, ducking and weaving between the crates and shelves of the warehouse to break line of sight with the Do-mare and find a hiding spot. If this one could just buy itself a hooffull of seconds it knew that it could get away from its pursuit.
This one continued making its way through the warehouse, eventually getting to the main entrance while avoiding the hoofful of laborers that were moving around merchandise. Eventually this one picked its way through the aisles of crates to get back outside. For the briefest moments this one thought it had gotten away. This one went stock-still as it listened for the sounds of the Do-mare’s pursuit. At first this one only heard the distant crashing of waves from the sea, seabirds cawing, cracking of lumber, and the grunts of laborers, and then there was the harsh crack of hooves on wood right above this one.
“Think you got away?” The Do-mare glowered down from a stack of crates. Before this one could take up a defensive stance she leapt, the two of us went tumbling, hitting the ground with a jolt that caused us to roll along in a mass of wild punches and grappling.
When our momentum came to a halt the Do-mare was on top of this one, breathing heavily as she struggled to hold this one’s legs down with a savage grin. “Gotcha, creep.”
“Don’t be so sure,” this one told her as it noticed something out of the corner of its eyes. A flicker of confusion ran through the Do-mare’s features, and this one called out as loudly as it could, doing its best to sound like a panicked and frightened mare. “Help! This crazy pony is trying to kill me! Guards! Guards!”
“Hey! What’s going on over here?”
Daring looked up and her eyes widened as she spotted the squad of guards trotting with purpose in our direction. Each was wearing a set of chainmail and wielding a spear, and they had the hard look of zebras who had seen their fair share of fights. “This creep stole from me!” the Do-mare objected, the gears in her head visibly turning as she tried to figure out how to deal with this sudden shift in events. A lucky break for this one, if it could play things right.
“No I didn’t!” This one tried shifting to remove some of the Do-mare’s leverage on it, but she wasn’t having any of it. “You lost that compass to me fair and square. You’re the one that went ballistic on me when you lost a game of cards! Will someone get this crazy pony off of me before she caves my head in?!”
The Do-mare growled. “You’re not going anywhere. That compass belongs to me!” The guards reached us and grabbed Daring to pull her off of this one. She struggled against them, but it was four against one and she didn’t seem quite willing to actually hit any of them. “Hey! Let me go! Aren’t you listening to me? She stole from me!”
“So I heard,” the captain said.
“Thank goodness you came when you did,” this one said with relief as it climbed to its hooves. “This pony’s been trying to kill me!” Hopefully this one could establish its narrative of events, after all, he who proved he was the victim won in a situation like this.
“No I’m not!” The Do-mare pulled her arm out of the grip of a guard and shot him a glower. “She stole from me, and I’m trying to get back what’s mine!”
“I won the compass in cards, fair and square,” this one insisted, building a believable web of lies. “Not my fault you’re a sore loser.”
“I am not!” The Do-mare stomped a hoof. “She’s lying, don’t listen to her!”
The frown on the captain’s face grew. “Ma’am, could you please keep your voice down? No need to get violent here.”
“Yes, please.” This one slowly straightened its saddlebags, trying to sound and look cooperative. As a rule, guards really didn’t like it when you acted uncooperative and were just a problem for them. “I’ll tell you again, I won the compass at cards. I’ve got witnesses back at the tavern if you want to check my story. They’ll tell you the truth.”
The Do-mare glared at me. “Stop lying you—”
One of the guards placed a hoof on her shoulder. “Let us handle this, ma’am.”
The Do-mare’s wings twitched, and for a moment this one wondered if she was going to take a swing at him. That would have been convenient for this one, but she visibly restrained herself before addressing the guard. “So are you gonna arrest her then? She has my compass right on her. Just check, I can tell you exactly what it looks like. And my friend will tell you he was wearing it before this pickpocket snatched it off of him.”
“We’ll figure all of that out as soon as we get a chance to talk with each of you.” He gestured with his head for them to step to the side. “How about we talk over there, and you can tell me your side of the story?”
The Do-mare’s gaze shifted between this one and the guard, the realization she was losing control of the situation dawning on her. “But—”
The guard captain took her by the shoulder and guided her away. That left me with a pair of the other guards. They didn’t exactly look happy to be with this one, but neither were they hostile. Time to work this one’s charms.
“Thanks for the help, I don’t know what she would have done if you hadn’t shown up when you had. She looked like she was about to cave my head in.” Best to sound grateful and happy to the guards. While guards tended to be institutionally paranoid, the fewer reasons this one gave them to be suspicious the better.
“So what happened?” the guard asked, his eyes flicking over this one as he studied its reaction to his questioning.
“Just like I said, we were playing cards at a nearby tavern when she bet some compass, and then she went ballistic when she lost it.” This one shrugged. “If I knew she was going to freak out like that I just would have left the table. In fact, that’s what I started doing after I won the game. She was acting a bit too hostile for my liking, so I thought It’d be best just to leave before there was an incident—but then that crazy pony chased me out of the bar. I ran for it until I ended up here.”
The guard frowned and asked his question in a calm and professional manner. “And her claims you stole it?”
“She probably convinced herself that I cheated during the game.” I snorted derisively. “Really, if I was going to steal something you think it’d be some lousy old compass? We only let her bet the compass to humor her. It was all in good fun, just betting a few ducats while we were hanging out in port.”
“Mhm, and can I see the compass?”
“Sure.” This one reached into its saddlebags. Though instead of pulling out the greenseer compass, this one pulled out a perfectly mundane compass. It had already slipped the greenseer into the hidden magical compartment in its bags.
The guard took the compass and looked it over with an unimpressed frown. “So this is what she said was stolen?”
“It is.” This one shrugged. “And it’s not worth the trouble it’s giving me, if I’m going to be frank. If she wants it so bad she can have it—I just want to head back to the tavern and hang out with my buds.”
The guard grunted in a way that neither agreed or disagreed with me. He exchanged a look with his fellow guard, and some unspoken words passed between them. “Mind waiting right here while I talk with the lieutenant?”
This one gave him an agreeable smile. “Sure, go ahead.”
The guard went to the lieutenant, probably to cross-reference my story with the Do-mare’s. It could be trouble when the Do-mare claimed that wasn’t the right compass. Considering this one’s options, this one spoke to the remaining guard.
“So, what’s it gonna take to let me go?”
The guard frowned, his tone becoming suspicious. “What do you mean?”
This one sighed and rolled its eyes. “I’m from Freeport, I know how this goes. Either I pay out to make this problem go away, or we both end up in the slammer for the night. You’ll claim you arrested me for brawling in the street and public intoxication, and then my captain will have to come by to pay a fine to spring me so that we can leave port in time to catch the tide.” This one shot him a flat glare. “If it’s all the same to you and your buddies, I’d prefer to just skip the middlemare and get right to the point. What’ll this cost me? Fifty bits?”
The guard’s eyes narrowed and his eyes flicked in the direction of his squad. The Do-mare looked to be rather enthusiastically trying to convince them she was right, but for the moment she was being stonewalled. “Are you trying to bribe a guard?”
This one let out an exasperated groan. “Call it a bribe or a fine, it’s all the same to me at the end of the day. Whatever avoids trouble with my captain. Eighty ducats? That’s twenty ducats for each of you.”
The gears turned in the guard’s head. “That fine’ll be a hundred ducats.”
This one made a show of grumbling as it pulled out its coinbag. “Damn expensive night of drinking if you ask me. If I never return to this godforsaken port ever again it’ll be too soon.” This one handed over the ducats and the guard counted them out.
“Everything seems to be in order,” the guard said when he confirmed the ‘fine’ had been paid. “You can go.”
“Thanks,” this one said in the grouchiest manner it could before trotting off. Best not to appear nearly as happy as this one really was. As soon as it was out of sight this one took on a fresh disguise before re-emerging onto the port town’s streets, the greenseer compass secure in this one’s bag. There were some advantages to being a changeling, after all.
So this one headed to the tavern the Ephemera-mare was at to give her the good news. This one did need to win her trust for its sudden but inevitable betrayal later.
Daring punched Puzzle’s shoulder. “It’s moments like this that make it really hard to like you, Puzzle.”
Puzzle smirked back at her. “You know you still like this one.”
“I said hard, not impossible,” Daring quipped back. “You do have a few positive features. Maybe one, two if it's a good day.”
I let out a huff. “You know, I can’t help but wonder if you two actually enjoy being nemesi.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.028 seconds
Total duration
1,066 users online
2,035,632 hits today, 2,571,732 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
marking as 'read later' so i have easy access to the entirety of the 'freeport' series.
I liked the confusion to gain a few minutes by pulling out a normal compass to return. Puzzle continues to be charmingly competent. And I like that Daring’s rich adventurer kid sidekick is actually being helpful. Money as a superpower and all, plus charm.
Puzzle makes for a very fun perspective. Wonder how everyone's gonna make their way to the Forbidden City.
Poor Daring, so smart with history, so dumb with ponies. Somehow she learns three dead languages but if you asked her to go to a museum opening she'd conveniently already be on a boat out of the country and just can't make it. Alternatively, she'd start a brawl.
I liked seeing Capital work his social graces and come out on top with the aide.
Puzzle was fun this chapter. Their competing points of view make a great contrast.
No wonder Daring prefers to work alone when she can. Not exactly a people pony. And shame on her for leaving an artifact out in the open and easily pickpocketable.
And there's the matter of bureaucracy only impeding those it wasn't meant to. After all, I doubt Ephemera much cares about clearing her expedition with the local authorities before setting out.
I don't have much to say, it's good and I'm eagerly awaiting the next chapter.
Ah, the marketplace chase scene. An adventurer archaeologist classic!
Great chapter, Puzzle's way of getting out of that situation at the end was unique and clever. Though I can't help but wonder about the rules surrounding changeling feeding in this universe. Namely, could a changeling even get love from a prostitute? There isn't any real love between a prostitute and their client; to them it's a business transaction, no matter how well acted. It's a minor point that's easy enough to ignore, but dammit what are the rules?
9128548
In an attempt to keep things concise, a changeling can theoretically feed on anyone. They're basically feeding off the psychic energy/magic of the individual in question. Now the quality of the feeding can vary wildly depending on the relationships involved. Going in and forcing a feeding on a pony who wants nothing to do with the changeling in question will yield poor results, while a feeding done with the permission of the pony in question will be a higher quality. If a pony has positive emotional opinions towards a changeling then the changeling will get even more out of it.
For instance, Kukri's mom, Knives, love for her daughters and husband is enough to keep them all well fed and without any negative effects to herself, despite a couple decades of consistent feeding of three changelings. If three changelings attempted that with a random stranger who cared nothing about them then it's libel to cause that individual major problems from having all their love drained out of them, headaches, exhaustion, difficulty connecting with others, perhaps even killing them. It's why you traditionally have changelings transforming into the loved ones of others in order to feed off of them. Shining sincerely and deeply loved Cadance, and Chrysalis was able to feed off of that and get quite the power boost off of it.
So in this case, Puzzle drained that prostitute pretty low for the sake of his own survival, and she's going to be feeling that for a week. Even if the long term consequences will be negligible from a single feeding. The prostitute was willing, but she didn't have any ingrained feelings for Puzzle. Thus the overall quality of the feeding wasn't very efficient, and why Puzzle nearly drained her dry. So I hope that answers your question.
One chapter better than the other...
Excellent 
Love Changelings 
They are gifted and a crafty bunch with a hard nourishment to compensate for the pros of being one 
9130272
World/racebuilding at its finest
9124516
Money as superpower... Sounds so wrong but goes a long way...
9124612
Always love to see more than one view point
9124680
They all have there moments but i must say i can see all of em making it so far on there own in a different timetable