Chapter 3 Search Par-Tay
Quizzical Greystone And The Basements Of Doom
Chapter 3 Search Par-Tay!
“Cheer up, Quiz,” said Shadow. “We’re having an adventure!”
“Yes,” answered Quiz. “And it is just as much fun as I would have expected. I am already resigned to the fact that I shall be late for dinner.”
They were following by the diamond dog’s torches, and the sound of the pony’s hoof steps. This allowed them to stay far enough back to safely speak softly.
Shadow gave Quiz a playful nudge. “Come on, we’ll get our opportunity to help them. We just need to be ready when it comes.”
“Oh, I very much doubt that.” Quiz moved to the side to be out of Shadow’s reach. “You seem capable enough, but I am a very small pony and I will not be of much help if action is called for. However, search parties will be sent to look for the other children. We should be able to signal our location.”
“I’m going to make a guess that you are selling yourself short,” said Shadow. “Anyway, how long after we’re over due before they start looking for us?”
“Not long. Parents are nervous about their children being in the Everfree Forest. It was only your father’s name that convinced most of them to allow this field trip at all.”
“It’s not his fault. The part of the forest we showed you was safe.”
“I said nothing of blame, please do not take offense.”
They walked on in silence for a bit before Shadow recovered. “So, you figure we’ll soon be rescued by the brave citizens of Ponyville, then?”
“They should be setting out to look for us within the hour. As for how long it may take them to actually rescue us,” Quiz pause to consider her words. “That will take longer. When moved to action in large numbers the citizens of Ponyville do not have a history of efficiency or clarity of thought.”
#
“’Dear Princess Luna,’” Twilight Sparkle dictated. “’I regret to inform you that I have lost Quiz again.’”
“You might want to rephrase that, Twi,” suggested Spike.
“Uuuungh! I don’t know what to say!” Twilight would have preferred to handle the problem quietly, but she had no choice but to alert the Princesses. Quiz was Luna’s student, and the Princess was touchy about her welfare. And this was, indeed, the second time Quiz had gone missing.
Worse yet, Angel was also with the missing children. When the Princesses first sent Angel to Ponyville, Twilight was given orders to treat her like a regular child. But the little unicorn was somehow related to the Princesses and therefore at least minor royalty. No interpretation of ‘treat her like a regular child’ included letting her disappear into the Everfree Forest.
“I am never going to be sent any more students ever again.”
“I got this, Twi,” said Spike. “I’ll compose the letter, you plan your search party.”
“It shouldn’t take too awful much plannin’, Twilight. Most likely they’re just delayed for some reason. We just head out and meet ‘em, and escort ‘em all in.”
Applejack and Rarity had arrived at the library when the class was only about ten minutes late. They had chatted with Twilight until they all couldn’t stand to wait any longer. That had taken only half an hour.
“I expect the little ones will be embarrassed to see us. They’ll whine about how we shouldn’t have fussed ‘cause they were fine all along. But better safe than sorry. Ah have no qualms about embarrassing Apple Bloom in the interest of safety.” Despite Applejacks reasonable façade she was worried sick about her little sister.
Rarity didn’t have a reasonable façade. “I don’t know how you can be so calm! I was against letting Sweetie Belle go into that terrible forest, and I told our parents as much. But they didn’t want Sweetie to be the only filly left out. Still, I don’t think the three of us should go alone.”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask a few ponies we trust to join us,” said Applejack. “But let’s not put out a call for volunteers.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “We’d end up with the ‘Ponyville Militia’ called out again. We don’t need half of town wandering aimlessly through the Everfree Forest. But it wouldn’t hurt to quietly ask…”
“Attention Ponyville! This is your Mayor! Our children are late returning from the Everfree Forest and I am calling for volunteers to form a search party!”
“Oh, brother!” Twilight held her face in her hooves and shook her head. “Why hasn’t any pony taken her bullhorn away?”
#
“I draw my sword and enter the room,” declared Big Macintosh, affecting a falsetto.
The Ponyville Hotel was hosting the Annual Guide Of Story Tellers Gaming Convention. Big Mac and his pixie-fairy character Hydrangea-Blooms-At-Dawn were one encounter away from winning in the semi-final round of the Advanced Destriers and Delvers tournament.
Before the game master could describe the room they were interrupted by the blast of a bullhorn in the street just outside.
“Attention Ponyville…!”
Big Mac listened to the Mayor’s announcement, then pushed his chair back from the table and stood. He began putting his dice back in their bag. “Sorry, guys, but I have to withdraw.”
“But you’re winning! You’re guaranteed a seat at the final table tonight!”
“Eeyupe,” agreed Big Mac. “But my little sis and my sweetie are out in that forest. A stallion’s gotta do what a stallion’s gotta do.”
After a moment the rest of the gamers all rose and applauded. Then they cheered, “For Adventure!”
#
Across the street, the Hotel Ponyville was holding the DaringCon convention for fans of the Daring Do novels. Rainbow Dash had been waiting forever in line in the signing room, and she was final just one away from the front. She was about to get the autograph of Professor Coal Heart, editor of The Daring Daily, the biggest fanzine in Equestria. But the uber-geek in front of Rainbow just would not move on.
“You still haven’t given me a cogent reason why you have rejected my fan fiction!” he whined.
Rainbow couldn’t stand it any longer. She poked the nerdish pony in the ribs with a wing and declared, “Listing, Bud, it’s obvious that he’s being tactful with you. You got rejected because your OC is obviously a self-insert. And the way you describe shipping him with Daring tells me that you can’t get a real date of your own. So, scram!”
The pony turned, then immediately thought better of tangling with Rainbow. Instead he stalked off to lodge a complaint with the con committee.
“Thank you, I thought he would never leave,” said Professor Heart, offering Rainbow a hoof.
Instead of shaking his hoof, Rainbow gave him a bump. Then she set an old copy of the Daily on the signing table. It was open to Professor Heart’s own epic fanfic, “Daring Do, And The Golden Cupcake.”
“You’re welcome, Professor, I’m your biggest fan! Make that out ‘to Rainbow Dash, my biggest fan!’”
“Attention Ponyville…!”
Rainbow listened to the announcement; then, with a look of steely determination, carefully straightened her pith helmet.
Around the room, several other ponies did the exact same thing.
They cheered, “For Adventure!”
#
Applejack, Twilight, and Rarity regarded the motley crew of volunteer ponies assembled in the street. It was a bit disconcerting.
“If we move swiftly and quietly,” whispered Rarity, “We could sneak away without them.”
Applejack shook her head. “They’d just follow us. Somepony has to stay with them to keep the search party from getting lost.”
Twilight was pleased to see Rainbow Dash among the volunteers. This evaporated when she noticed that not only did Rainbow have on her pith helmet, she was also standing in a small group of ponies, all of whom pith helmets. It made them look a bit like a cluster of mushrooms.
Twilight was surprised to see a bright pink pony among the volunteers from the gaming convention. “Pinkie, aren’t you supposed to defend your title tonight?”
“Oh, yeah, and I was going for a record, too!” Pinkie was the queen of the Guild of Story Teller’s convention’s board game track. Last year she had won both the Ponyopoly and Saddle Arabian Checkers tournaments. Since the finals had been held at the same time Pinkie had to run from one table to another to take her turns. “I was going to add the Friendship: The Gathering ™ CCG, and two of the new electronic games, Appleoosa Trail and Prance-Prance Revolution.”
“You were going to play five games at once?”
“Yep! It would have been soooo cool! But there are more important things than playing games. Not many, but there are a few.”
“Well, that’s a healthy attitude, mostly…”
“Oh, and if we hurry maybe we can get back in time for the high stakes Candy Kingdom game! It’s a 100 bit buy in, if anypony’s interested.”
“That’s nice, Pinkie. Anyway, thank you for volunteering…”
“Don’t be silly, Twilight. How could I miss something called a search party?”
“It’s not that sort of party, Pinkie.”
“It could be!”
“Really,” whispered Rarity, “We could just excuse ourselves for a moment, and sneak away.”
Twilight took a deep breath and forged on. She levitated a map of the Everfree Forest and held it open for the volunteers. “This is a copy of the map Dr. Stalker has made of his survey area. I’ve identified the three most likely places to look for the foals, and I’ve color coded the paths to these locations…”
“Ooooh! Dibs on the blue path!” called Rainbow Dash.
“I haven’t even told you where it goes!”
“Don’t care. We want the blue path.”
“Fine, then we want the red path,” declared a blue Pegasus with a pink mane, standing among the gamers. “And we’ll be back with the kids before you even get started!”
“You wish, Sky!” Rainbow shot back. “We’ll find the kids first, so you might as well just not bother.”
“Focus, ponies, focus!” shouted Twilight.
“Would you like to borrow the bullhorn, Twilight?”
“No thank you, Mayor. Moving on, the green path is the planned route of the field trip. That’s where the children most likely are. If they ran into difficulties there are two places they might have taken refuge. The blue path leads to Dr. Stalker’s camp. The red path is to Zecora’s cottage.”
“Blue path,” said Rainbow.
“Red path,” stated Sky.
“Fine!” grumbled Twilight. “Can we just move on, now?”
Spike waddled up to them. He was carrying a bucket filled with burnt paper. “Twilight, we have a problem.”
“Spike, what do you have there?” asked Twilight, indicating the bucket.
“My last eight attempts to contact the Princesses. Here, let me show you.” Spike threw a scroll into the air and breathed green fire at it. Instead of disappearing, the scroll burned right there. Flakes of paper ash floated down to the street. “That makes nine letters that have failed to go through. There’s some kind of interference.”
Twilight had noticed a buzzing in her ears every time she’d cast a spell that afternoon. “Perfect, just perfect. There couldn’t possibly be a better time for magic to go haywire. Spike, keep trying. Now, can anypony think of anything we’re forgetting?”
“Just that we need to get a move on if we want to make the round trip before sunset,” said Applejack.
As if on cue, the gamers and the Daring Do fans cheered, “For Adventure!”
Each group turned and glared at the other.
“Alright, fine. So much for planning. Just one more thing, and we can all go rushing half-cocked into the Everfree Forest.” Twilight rolled her map up with two blank scrolls. The paper glowed violet, and when Twilight unrolled it there were three copies of the map. She told herself that the buzzing in her ears had not grown louder. That was just her imagination.
As Twilight passed out the maps she noticed that there was a signature in the corner. It wasn’t Shady Stalker’s. Apparently, it was Shadow Seeker who had drawn the map.
#
Three figures held back when the ponies moved out.
“What are we going to do, Boss?” asked one.
“That’s a very good question,” was the snarled answer. “We need to find out what those idiots have done, and we need to keep these idiots from discovering what we’re up to.”
“That sounds good, Boss.” There was a long pause. “So… which idiots are which?”
This earned him a hoof to the back of the head. “’Those idiots’ are our idiots, and they better have a good reason for snatching a herd of foals. I’ll deal with them. ‘These idiots’ are the Ponyville dimwits. You two go with that group,” he pointed, “and make sure they don’t accidentally learn anything. Then meet me at the rendezvous point. We have to be loaded and underway at moonset. If you’re late you get left behind.”
They hurried to catch up with the search party.
#
“Excuse me, Shady, I don’t mean to be a bother, but what are you doing?”
Shady was walking slowly around a large tree, his nose almost touching the bark. “I’m looking for a trail mark. This is just exactly the sort of tree… um… we would have marked.”
“Trail mark?”
“They are scattered through the Forest. Mostly they’re little arrows to guide the way, a few are warnings about the immediate area.”
“W-w-warnings?” Much of Shady’s casual conversation terrified Fluttershy.
“Simple things, really; easily seen and evaded. Don’t give it a thought.”
“Sink holes, poison thorns, strangle vines, quicksand, trees where fruit bats roost, that sort of thing, Shady?” asked Derpy.
“Well, yes, those are hazards on the list…”
“Open water, ground nesting wasps, dragon caves…”
“There are dragon caves here?” squealed Pipsqueak. “Cool!”
“There’s just the one, and you can’t miss it, little chance of unpleasant surprise there.” Shady thought he was being more reassuring than he actually was.
“Excuse me, but is this list very long?” asked Fluttershy. She would have considered a list of hazards with two items too long a list.
“There are one hundred and thirty-six trail signs, not counting direction and distance markers,” said Derpy.
“How did you know that, Mom?” asked Dinky.
“It was in Shady’s last book. He uses the same system the Royal Equestrian Mail Service used once.”
“It is a very comprehensive list, and it includes several signs we have never used.” Shady looked thoughtful. “’Beware of dog’ and ‘Homeowner does not appreciate visitors’ are the only ones that come to mind…”
“Excuse me, Shady, and I do hope you don’t take this the wrong way,” said Fluttershy. “But you make me a little more nervous with every word you speak. Could you please, if it’s not too much trouble, just be quiet for a while?”
“Miss Derpy?” asked Angel. “What’s going to happen to Miss Cheerilee and our friends?”
“We don’t know, Sweetheart,” Derpy answered. “But the diamond dogs wouldn’t dare harm them. That would just get them in a lot of trouble.”
“Don’t worry, Angel,” exclaimed Pip. “They’ll be fine. Miss Quizzical is with them, and she’ll know what to do!”
“Gee, I don’t know,” said Angel. “Quiz is kind of, you know, weird.”
“You take that back, Angel! Miss Quizzical is my friend!”
“Now, now, children.” Fluttershy stepped between them. “We mustn’t fight; it’s very important to work together. Pip, you know that ponies who haven’t had time to get to know Quiz often don’t understand her. Angel, Pip is right. Quiz is a very clever pony, and if there is any way she can help she’ll think of it. Now both of you be nice.”
Derpy let Fluttershy calm the children, knowing this would help calm Fluttershy. She stepped up to Shady to have a quiet word.
“You can’t find the trail marks, can you, Shady?”
“It isn’t easy,” Shady protested. “The marks are very subtle, so as to disturb the environment as little as possible. They are little more than scratches on the bark.”
“Which means you can’t find the marks.”
“Shadow usually finds them,” answered Shady, miserably.
#
Shadow made a small mark on the wall, then slipped the piece of chalk back into his bag. “So, you don’t like Hide and Seek?”
“I have found that if anything wishes to hide from me I am happiest if I allow them to continue to do so,” said Quiz.
“Don’t you ever jump out and shout ‘Boo!’ at your friends?”
“Why ever would I want to do that?”
“Maybe, because it’s fun?”
“No, no I do not think so.”
Shadow shook his head. “You are a very unusual pony, Quiz.”
“Yes, I know.”
They came to a patch of tunnel that seemed slightly better lit, and Quiz stopped. “Oh, good, we have found an air shaft.”
“Could we use it to escape if we have to?”
“Only if you can open the grate that covers it. There will be another cover at the top.”
Shadow flew up to examine the shaft. He tested the iron grate. “I’m not sure I can open this. Anyway, it’s really narrow. I’d have to fly with my wings half folded. I’d be fine, I’m good at that, but I couldn’t get enough lift to carry you as well. This idea just fell from plan B down to plan Z.”
“I believe I can cast a spell through it. I am going to try to send a signal to Ponyville.” Quiz set her horn glowing, and concentrated. Almost immediately, the soft beige of Quiz’s magic turned blue-green. Quiz canceled her spell, but not before her horn began to give off sparks.
“Quiz, are you alright?!"
“Yes, though that was quite alarming. Please keep your voice down, Shadow.”
“Then don’t scare me like that again.”
“I did not do it on purpose.” Quiz pondered what had just happened. “There seems to be some sort of magical interference. It is safe down here, insulated by stone, but I fear my magic will be useless to us. I can think of nothing that will help us, and I do not know what to do.”
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I love your fics, but MY GOD you need to fix the formatting!
Darn you! Trying to go to sleep! Hmm... something wrong with the formatting here. The centering may be messed up.
2050964
Yep. Grey on grey basket cases...
Bonus points if they play guitar.
Extra credit will be given to bi-curious mares.
Hmn, not sure if I'm rooting for Big Mac and the gamers or Dash and the Daring Do fans. Because of course it's a competition.
So, Big Mac has a sweetie... Cheerilee? Fluttershy? Derpy?
2073795 It isn't very much of a spoiler if I say. Cheerilee. As cute as Fluttershy or Derpy would be with Big Mac, I have a soft spot for idea that the Hearts and Hooves Day episode was the begining not the end for Big Mac and Cheerilee.
Quiz isnt a mary sue oc. I find her adorable. Didn't even notice formatting, so whatever. Great chapter, cant wait for more.
GODDAMIT FIMFICTION!
Y U NO TELL ME THIS UPDATED!!!!!
ARRRRRRGHHHHH!
He he. That bit really tickled me.
The only error I really noticed was this:
I do believe this is still Shadow talking correct?
lol @ the convention stuff. That will not go well...
Small note: there's a line break in there behind "then slipped the piece of chalk back into", and I'm fairly sure it shouldn't be there.
"For Adventure!”
Oh, and I'm looking at you game convention.
Guild of the Storyteller's Convention. Is a go!
*Got to get Quiz playing them*
Friendship: the Gathering strikes again lol. Last time I saw that was in one of Darf's fics involving Rarity.
Wait... Pinkie wanted to play DDR er- PPR along with like 4 other games simultaneously... frig, I'm not gonna try to understand that one.
Gold Team Rules!i.ytimg.com/vi/k-U722IJHlE/hqdefault.jpg
"17 days? I hate to rain on your parade, but we won't last 17 hours!" - Hudson.
Wait... Wrong genre, isn't it?
"Annual Guide Of Story Tellers Gaming Convention" should be "Annual Guild Of Story Tellers Gaming Convention".