> Rise of the Displaced Avali > by Meylin Messor > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 God damn merchant > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Hey Jack, hurry up, you're going to be late for that Comi-con thing " he called with a fair amount of anger due to waiting for so damn long yep, guess who that was? My snake of a father, asshole, is a good person, but is somewhat corrupt in the way he does things. Rather not get into it. " Scheisse, I'm damn well coming you moron! It takes a bit of damn effort to get this damn costume to look right! I heard they're doing a competition and I want to win it damnit! " Yep, I WAS going to try to win it, but I was missing a very important piece of my costume. " You're taking longer than your mother takes to get ready! HA HA HA! " I reply " Oh shut up filthy fat fag! I'm damn well hurrying! Scheisse... its like you don't even know what patience is! " That is an insult I say to my father, Filthy fat fag, what an insult right? Got it from a video, one where spy from tf2 called heavy a ' Filthy fat man ' derived it from there. " Alright! Finally done, took for-fucking-ever to get those damn feathers in place! " Yep, guess what I'm cosplaying as? An Avali from a mod that is for the game Starbound. Fluffy and 'cute' space raptors. Those damn things can shred foes to pieces just as well as any other race, so they sure as all hell aren't cute when they go nuts with a 2handed sword or hammer! Not to mention with frackin races, a large boost to resistance to ice! Awesome! I then say " Well, lets go, no time to waste now. " We quickly got into a vehicle and got moving, made good time, got there in minutes. After we got there, I learned that the competition would be later, so I went through and kept checking through the stalls, until I saw a very certain someone, said someone, looked 'just' like the merchant from resident evil 4. And was inside of a TENT for a stand. Great! Comi-con? Check! Creepy merchant? Check! Going to be displaced to Equestria? Hopefully not. As I saw the matter manipulator on his table and I instantly was there and actually scared him by nearly shouting " HOW MUCH FOR THE MATTER MANIPULATOR????!!!! " He recoiled back and cursed enough put a sailors cursing to shame. After that and a rather mean look, he said ( With a perfect Resident evil 4 merchant accent ) " Stranger, after that? It was at 40, but now its 60. Are you fucking serious?! God damnit, that's 1/14 of all the cash I have.... I give a very VERY slight glare. " Fine, but I want to see what else Is around here, and preferably something functional, not just something too heavy for any mortal man to swing around " The merchant laughs " Great choice, stranger, perhaps you're interested in those items over there? " He points to a shelf. I look and see something beautiful, a perfect, 44 magnum loaded carbon copy of the spy's festive ambassador revolver ( but no light on it ) the sapper, the invis watch, the dead ringer, the cloak and dagger, and three knives, the Y.E.R, the stock butterfly knife, and the big earner. I ask these few questions " Is the ambassador chambered in 44 magnum or is it 357 or 454? Are the knives sharpened with a 20 degree angle down to very fine? and does the dead ringer actually function as a pocket watch as well as the light up LED display for the battery meter of the supposed faked death? " He answered them in quick order " 44 magnum, 20 degree angle down to very fine, and yes it does. " I say this while paying him " One last thing, merchant. Ignis, and FUS RO DAH! " I had timed it perfectly, as something behind him caught fire and a few items fell off the display shelves, when I said ignis and FUS RO DAH respectively. He quickly throws some water on the flames and forces me to pick up the stuff that fell, after that I quickly grab everything and get ready to go " Well stranger, you're certainly an interesting one, oh, and have fun " I was wondering what he meant by that when I saw a portal open up in front of me on the ground, I was like Well shit, I'm being displaced, OH WELL! " Inie mini mini moe! WELL FUCK IT! HERE I GO! " I jumped through the portal while looking as badass as possible, and that is all before I woke up in equestria. > Chapter 2 Welcome to equestria, also learning to craft is fun! And gives me a headache > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- All I saw was darkness, I could see myself, somehow. How? I have no clue. I start to regain a sense of touch, I feel grass, then hearing, I hear birds tweeting, then smell, ugh, smells like dog shit, then taste, and finally, I think I can open my eyes. Before I do, I think that the birds are right beside me, Loud, loud, loud, loud, LOUD! due to the sheer volume of the tweeting, I say " Shut up birds, if you're going to tweet, do it away from me... I have a headache. " Wait a sec.... WHAT THE HELL?! MY VOICE! I quickly sit up and open my eyes, now fully awake and in the mode of ' I don't give a shit about anything scared ' and look down at myself and what do I see? Feathers, breasts, the survival gear for the avali, and the diplomats sleeves for the avali and of course, the gear and sleeves are blood red. along with hands that seemed to be more like claws, also covered in FEATHERS! What the HELL! Why in the hell do I..... oh shit, hang on a sec, I can worry about THIS later, there are more important things to do I quickly look around and see I actually have BETTER vision that I did before ( I was almost legally blind, that was how bad my vision was ) and I got up. Hang on, my vision seems to be at least 20/20, whats up with this? I.... wait, I'm my OC right now aren't I? Well shit, stuck in a forest, as my OC, and by my guess, in equestria, great, only big problem, I'M A WOMAN NOW! Hold on, my OC had.... I started getting a feel for my body, and guess what? I'm some sort of mutant avail, I have the wings on my arms, but I also have two bat like wings on my back, and I have not one, not two, but THREE avali tails Are you serious? Well shit, hm, I wonder.... I look around again and at that moment I see, guess what? A Manticore. Yep, theres proof I'm in equestria right now, also, how in the hell didn't I see that, also, FUCK ME I'M ABOUT TO DIE! I then realize its asleep Must be taking a cat nap, damnit I like puns almost as much as that damn skeleton, need to move quickly I slowly start to move as my sense of balance is F.U.B.A.R right now. I fall " Ow " and again " Ow ' and yet again " OW! " and damnit, that was loud. Fuck, have to remember that my hearing is...like...8X better than a humans. Shit. It IS going to be hard to sleep at night. Oh well, at least now it'll be REALLY damn difficult to sneak up on me. 30 minutes later.... I saw the castle of the two sisters on the way to my current location and wow, its shocking, I have, to put it simply, a metric fuck ton of information flooding into my head, mainly how to craft certain things, but the first thing I learned was how to open my inventory, and what do I see? All the FU books Going to save those, an Avali TeleporterTHIS will be useful, a guide on how to craft avikan items,Perfect, now I can hunt things for equipment, and I somehow also know how to refit it for an avali A protectorate sword, a protectorate pistol, and a few more VERY important items, A personal tri coder, 40 handheld torches, 2000 pixels and, guess what the last item is? Holy scheisse.... I have the fucking matter manipulator! This'll make survival a lot easier I quickly got to work chopping down trees, gathering cobblestone & mud ( The manipulator doesn't work the same as in the game, it makes it out into rough shapes, so it can also be used as a shaping tool ) and plant fiber from the trees, I then proceed to take the manipulator and create a shelter high up in the trees so that only I ( And pegasi ) can reach it. 3 hours later Finally! Took almost all my supplies but it is done! The 'tree house' was supported by trees, cut logs, and cobblestone, the whole thing is 15-16 feet off the ground, has a hole I can jump into ( I can jump roughly 22-30 feet into the air now ) and the inside is 9 meters long, 6 meters wide, and 3 meters high. I place down a torch for light. Then I start to wonder how to build an inventors table, I mean, it worked by pulling up a crafting menu, and... Bingo, crafting menu, lets see.... and would you look at that! Works just like the game, the manipulator works differently, but only slightly, maybe because the world isn't made of blocks and is 3D is perhaps why. I quickly craft some of the basic things ( Inventors table, furnace, foraging table, wooden work bench, some rope, a spinning wheel, a avail nanolathe & Avali Weapon Workbench, along with four weapons, a primitive scythe, a primitive broadsword, 40 hunting spears, and a boomerang. I have all of those items set up inside and it starts to get dark out, as I see the moon is rising, I decide to sleep, as I need to get up early, I'll hunt tomorrow, as I know better than to be out in everfree at night, fan fictions and experience with actual forests taught me that. So I put down some plant matter that I crafted at the wooden workbench and lied down and fell asleep quickly. in Kalali' dreams I see a place I know all too well, my room, always messy, with a shitty office pc that my father CLAIMED to have bought for over 900 dollars Yeah the fuck right, its so damn bad it compares to a 400 dollar, and it meets a higher quality of them, no way it was 900 dollars, I know the fool lied to me, I mean really, got a PC that compares to an ACTUAL 700 dollars PC, and I get this piece of shit? Talk about a money hungry asshole. Little did I realize, that while in the dreamscape, thoughts are like speaking, and I had an eaves dropper, can you guess who? Luna. Now I may have not watched the show, but I happen to find a bit of semblance with Luna, as well, I've done things I regret, and ever since then I've attempted to make amends for them. But the watcher decided to keep herself hidden, and I knew she was there, but I couldn't care less. So I start to plan. ( But I make it sound like I don't know what a pony is ) Alright, when I wake up I need to do some extra recon, and look for a water source, then a food source, note: Avoid cockatrices, those wooden wolves, and anything else TOO dangerous, hopefully I can find some rabbits and / or birds to catch and eat or maybe even a manticore that's asleep, but I may need to result to berries and fruit if I can't find anything, but one problem, if I attempt to make contact with the locals, judging by their behavior, body shape and posture, they're a prey species, so I would need to wait on contact until I can get a safe area to retreat to incase things go south, I will also need armor and better weapons than what I have now should I need to fight back, but I really hope it doesn't come to that, they're so cute! If I'm right, then there are three species, Ones without horns or wings, ones with horns, and ones with wings, but none with both so far, but the most amazing part is that they speak English! I'm guessing the rest can as well, I also wonder if the written language is the same? I'll need to recon that old castle I saw while I moved to this location, and I'll need to make some traps to keep stuff out that I want to KEEP OUT! and... shoot, looks like I'm waking up, there is work to do today! it all fades to white. I wake up and stretch my limbs, they pop and I feel like I can move again, so I quickly get out of 'bed' and grab my stuff, equip my hunting spears, and get ready to go, I look down from my houses hole in the floor and, by luck of the fucking draw, a manticore sleeping RIGHT below the opening. Fuck, I KNOW this is too damn easy, I'll need to watch out, I know for a fact that the universe wants to fuck me over, so hang on, I'm going to craft some salves I quickly craft them then I decide to craft a primitive spear and just drop down on this poor idiot of a manticore, I know it could be the one that fluttershy helped during the time of nightmare moon ( Yes, I've read over 800 fics, my favorites being Mordane Stronghoof, fallout equestria, fallout equestria heroes, Shattered skies, alicorn of music, Nightmare: rise of demons, and the list goes on, so I know a fair amount, but I may not be 100% correct. Moving on ) I decide to kill the manticore, so I take aim, and prepare, and I drop down, driving the spear head right through its spine and neck, killing it instantly, but what happens next baffles me, a menu appears saying ' Disappear and leave less behind, or do it the old fashion way and earn more? ' I chose disappear this time, as I don't know what parts are safe to eat on a manticore, and it drops 20 pieces of raw meat, 20! I luckily know how to smoke meat, so I can store it for a few days, which I also get ' Manticore poison gland, Vemon Sample, Manticore Venom, Manticore stinger, leather X 4, monster hide X 7, monster bone X 10, great monster bone X 1. ' Holy shit! That stuff will be useful, now all I need to do is make the stations needed for using monster hide and bone, and a great monster bone? Since equestria has hydras, dragons, and such, it might be a mix of a lava like planet in terms of danger from some enemies, and a lush in terms of habitability. That, or I got REALLY lucky. I gather it up and go back up into my house, and build a chest, and store the spare materials, then I get quite a lot of knowledge on what I can use from the materials I gathered, which while it is useful, it hurts. I build a fire and cook then eat the meat. Its alright, I'll admit that, not the best, needs salt, pepper, and garlic to bring out the flavor, I'll worry about that later. For now, I need to find water, then I need to fortify an area of 20 meters around my home, preferably 30 meters, I'll need bricks for that, which means I need more cobble stone as my current supply is... 20, just 20, not enough for a decent defense, I'll also need pillars to hold them up, a gate, which will need iron, a lock, and much more, I'll also need a bow or something else for ranged defense, gah, so much shit to do, not enough time, alright priorities first: Water, Ranged Weapon, Copper and Iron Ore, Cobblestone, Sand, Wood. Now lets get moving. I quickly check my manipulator's stats and am shock by what I see, it has all of its utility upgrades already, as in, Paint, Wire, and liquid gathering. So that makes it easier, I'll still need to boil the water, as while is may be equestria, I know the water has to have some sort of microbe that wants to kill me. I manage to find a pond in as little as 10 minutes of walking, by my guess, its roughly 30 feet deep, and 100 feet wide, its a near circle, I drain about 1/40 of the water from it and get moving as 300 units of water SHOULD be enough to last me a long time, as after all, 1 unit is about 3X as much as 1 bottle of water by my guess. So I head back to camp and make roughly 40 pieces of woven fabric and make a 'filter' for the water for later. I then look at the hill I see roughly 60 meters away from my current position and go to it, and find out its a cave. Better not be a damn dragon in here, I'll need FAR better weapons to fight one of those things! I walk into the cave with a torch in hand and my eyes light up like the 4th of July! A HUGE iron and copper vein presents itself to me like rolling out a red carpet. I start mining it as quickly as I can, I end up with 104 iron, and 127 copper, and I look to further into the cave and what do I see? Three things. Tungsten, Coal, and a large pile of gold, gems, and other stuff. Take a wild guess about what I found? I look slightly up and guess what else I see? A dragon, staring at me, I stare back, I'm thinking well shit, guess this is how I die huh? The dragon speaks. " WHO DARES WANDER INTO MY CAVE AND DISTURB MY SLEEP! " Let me tell you, it HURT to hear this dragon. The voice is deep, yet I can tell its a female. Which scares me more, as a female dragon could = EGGS! Eggs = Protective mother, and Protective mother = a very high chance of becoming a very crispy critter, And I do the stupidest thing. " My name is Kalali, I'm the one who wandered in here and disturbed your slumber, I'm sorry mighty dragon, I was lost and had not considered this to be a possible dragon den / nest, I thought this may have been a place where I could've looked for a certain material I require for survival. " The Dragon looks me in the eye and shouts. " SURVIVAL?! HAVE YOU COME TO TAKE MY EGGS?! " It shakes me, but I stand strong. " No, I was searching for a material called ' Lead ' in hopes of being able to create a thing called a ' weight ' to use for fishing. " I say with confidence. " THEN WHY TAKE THE IRON AND COPPER THERE? " " That is the thing, it has been documented by my species that lead is somewhat commonly found near either of those two, I figured I could gather them and that there would be lead underneath it, gather it, and be done, but it seems as if there was none. " I lied somewhat, as I needed to keep from becoming a crispy critter. The dragon stares at me, seemingly in deep thought, then speaks " YOU SPEAK A HALF TRUTH, YOU NEEDED THE IRON AND COPPER, WHY? " ( WOW! So it bought the part that it is somewhat commonly found near those? I might be able to get out of this alive ) I say " I need the iron for defense purposes, and I need the copper to forge a bow for hunting, but I need the lead for the same reason as I said before, along with a possible trap that I have for a certain creature that turns things to stone by staring at them, as lead is very heavy, drop it from a 20 foot distance, and I doubt anything other than a dragon will survive that " " CLEVER, A WAY TO HUNT THOSE BEASTS WITHOUT RISKING BEING TURNED INTO STONE, I'M IMPRESSED " I'm rather shocked as to what the dragon said, but I decide lets just role with it. As I'm having a pounding head and ear ache from how loud it is. " It took some thinking, but now I just need the metal for it to work. " I said pretty much without thinking. " IF YOU BRING ME 5 OF THEM, I WILL CONSIDER IT REPAYING ME FOR TRESSPASSING, DEAL? " Now THIS is one thing that gets me open, making deals, trading, and such things, I'm a merchant / trader / buyer and seller by nature. " Hm, I forgot to inform you I set up camp nearby, so I could also help you should you get attacked, and you could do the same, so how about this, I'll bring 10 cockatrices, and we agree that I can stay in the area, and we'll watch each others back, I'll even create a custom gate only you can open, so it isn't as easy for something to get in here and steal your eggs or horde, I just need a piece of lead about this big ( Shows how large of a piece I need which is roughly 2 feet by 2 feet ) to make the traps and start killing, how is that for a deal? " The dragon looked to be in deep thought, it took a few minutes, but said " DEAL, SO LONG AS YOU'RE SURE YOU HOLD YOUR END OF THE BARGIN. HERE, THIS IS THE ' LEAD ' YOU SPEAK OF, CORRECT? " It shows me a large chunk of lead ore. I'm surprised that actually worked, but I just say " Let me see it.... YEP! This is it, weights more than I thought. Alright, I should have 10 in about 2 weeks, or less. Hopefully less though, oh, and can I keep the eyes? I need them for an experiment. Might be able to reverse the effect of their stare if it works. " The dragon just nodded, so I left the cave and set off for home. GOD DAMNIT THAT WAS LOUD! But aren't dragons normally greedy creatures? Ah, who cares? I have copper, iron, and lead. So I can make a bow, all I need now is string, which I can craft. I quickly start for home, I had better keep the deal for that dragon. Or else I'll end up as a deep fried avali. Time is ticking, time to hurry Once I reach home I refine the ores and make a few small 2in' wide and 4.5in' long cylinder of lead. My plan is to have a net holding 3-5 of the cylinders up and have it drop onto the target from about a 30 foot height. Thanks to the weight of lead, it should work. I finished crafting everything I wanted. But the biggest things I crafted were GUNS! That's right! I have guns now! Thing is, I bet they're a lot more or a lot less deadly than in game. I'll need to test that, but here's a list of what I crafted: Hunting Bow, Iron Katana X 2, Iron Sniper rifle, Iron machine pistol X2, Wooden Crossbow, and Iron helmet, leg, and chest inserts, which don't seem to slow me down nor provide any sort of look. Perfect, works just like the game, but I'm guessing that I would need schematics for things that aren't normally from starbound mods, such as.... wait a bloodly second.... I quickly check behind where my ear holes would be a find a switch, now, this feature is an augment my OC had that would allow it to deal with extremely loud noises, such as firing a gun, as it can reduce its hearing from its normal level, down to that of a human, or further, a human with ear plugs, and finally, deaf. It allowed my OC to be able to sleep in noisy areas ( Luckily the forest was quiet last night ) GOD DAMNIT! WHY IN THE HELL DIDN'T I REMEMBER ABOUT THAT?! Oh wait... hang on... I point at a dark location " Lumen " and surprisingly, it works, it damn well works! Oh HELL YEAH! TIME TO GRIFFIN THE GRIFFIN THIS WORLD! HA! Wait, if LATIN works here... then... oh dear god, what if dovahzul works? And do I have my OC's magic? If so, I'm staying the hell away from any contact, too dangerous, dark magic, necromancy, all kinds of magic, I wonder if I apply logic to spells if I actually have regular magic if it would work. I need to move to a location further away first, don't want the dragon to hear me. 45 minutes later... I'm standing in a clearing, with a few wooden targets set up, time to test dovahzul. I Switch my hearing to the ' Human ' setting and... " FUS! " and a wave of energy came, it sent the target flying back. Holy shit! That worked, IT ACTUALLY WORKED! I suppose I have some spare tricks, I wonder what other shouts I have? I then somehow open the skyrim inventory and see that I have a slot system so the skyrim and starbound system carry over, but I go to magic and find just shouts are unlocked, I can't access any of the magic tabs so I just look into shouts and what I find is surprising, I have access to the: Aura Whisper, Whirlwind Sprint, Unrelenting Force,, Fire breath, Frost Breath, Ice Form, Kyne's Peace, Cyclone, Battle Fury, Call of Valor, Battle & Elemental fury, Disarm and Dismay, Marked For Death, Throw Voice, Clear Skies, and 8 more that surprised me, Slow Time, Drain vitality, Soul Tear, Become Ethereal, Dragon aspect, Storm call, Dragon-Rend, and the most dangerous, Bend Will. Do you have any idea how dangerous Bend will is? Sure Soul Tear is bad, but bending the mind is FAR worse. More so since I bet I can manipulate the mind for longer than in game. Become Ethereal will be useful, so will Throw Voice, Drain Vitality as well. Alright, so I have these shouts, this should work, I need to avoid using any of the more dangerous ones, along with Dismay or Kyne's Peace, since those have to do with the mind, but become Ethereal, or maybe even Dragon Aspect should be ok to use. With that done, I get set to prepare the trap, it took a while and some 'fine' tuning with the personal tri coder to make a more precise matter manipulator, but it worked out eventually. And then I weight tested the trap and surprise! It can hold 180 pounds of lead, the idea is, the animal steps on an area, it traps it VIA rope and such, then the container filled with lead drops on the target, the container is only 2.785 inches wide on the inside, its a piece of pipe I managed to close off using the manipulator. I then tested the device with a dummy made out of wood and well.... the results were FAR better than I expected. So I made a few more and set them up around my camp, then I went back to the dragon's cave. As I went in I saw 20 griffins holding down the dragon with chains, I got down and switched my hearing back to Avali hearing. The Griffin who I believe is the leader speaks.. " Alright boys! We have a dragon AND her eggs! The dragon will make a great fight in the arena AND the eggs will fetch a good price on the market, lets haul it out of here. " Shit, its hero time! I pull out both machine pistols and switch to ' Half deaf ' hearing. Then I let 'em have it! * BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG! * Already with 10 of them being dead, the griffins are covering their ears in a vain attempt to block the sound, I switch to my katanas and rush three of them, then the fight is truly on, one draws what I believe is a type of musket, I pull out my hunting spear, throw it, and it misses, shit. He fires, it grazes my shoulder, FUCK did THAT hurt. I shout " ALRIGHT YOU BASTARDS! DIE! VEN-GAAR-NOS! " It does what I expect, it weakens the chains on the dragon and sends the griffins into the stalagmites at the top of the cave, killing the rest. The dragon shakes the chains off and looks afraid, but before she can say anything... " Well, that's that, damn griffins, are you ok miss? What about your eggs? Are they unharmed? Also, I never got your name, can you please tell me it? " She looked slightly less spooked after I asked about her and her eggs safety. And while she was talking I was gathering the weapons and armor of the bandits. " I'M FINE, I WOULDN'T OF BEEN HAD YOU NOT CAME, BUT ANSWER THIS QUESTION, HOW DO YOU KNOW THE ANCIENT TOUNGE? MUCH LESS BE ABLE TO SPEAK IT IN SUCH A WAY? " The dragon asks with a bit of worry yet also curiosity. " To be honest, I haven't a clue, I cannot remember too much, to me, it seems as if my memories since before roughly 1-2 days ago were of another life entirely, like I remember seeing through their eyes, doing what they did, feeling the same way they did, it is odd and difficult to describe, but I did learn of the words, but I do not remember where, nor how I can use the Thu'um. " I replied. I had already finished gathering the weapons and I know what I'm going to do with them. " YOU HAD ANOTHER LIFE, THAT WAS NOT YOUR OWN, BUT YOU CANNOT REMEMBER THE ONE THAT WAS YOURS? " The dragon said which was ' spot on ' for the story I'm going with. " Yes, that is what I believe, and I must ask, since I saved you, may we call this payment for the deal? " I reply with an unnoticeable smirk. " YES, THIS IS FAR BEYOND WHAT I ASKED OF YOU, THANK YOU, KALALI, AND MY NAME IS HUO LUN. " Huo Lun huh? It means fire wheel in Chinese if I'm correct. " Well then, the debt is repaid, so it is agreed that we will watch each others back and I shall be able to live in this area, correct? Also, I still will build that gate for you, to avoid THAT happening again in case I'm too far away. And would you be able to watch my camp while I'm gone until I get a good perimeter set up? I don't want someone or something sneaking in there and stealing my stuff " I'm just making sure I get these details right. " YES, THAT IS RIGHT, WE HAVE AGREED, BUT WHY BUILD THE GATE? YOU HAVE REPAID THE DEBT 10 FOLD? " She answers with confusion. " Why build the gate? Because, it is wrong to take a child or children away from their parents, unless said parents abuse their child, in which case, if that DOES happen, I put a hole through their heads. " That's one thing I hate more than nearly anything, child abuse. " AGREED ON THAT, AND THANK YOU. " She seems to be genuinely happy, very at that. " You're welcome, I need to head back to base camp and begin building the gate, it shouldn't take too long, I'll need to measure the mouth of the cave, and I need to see how big you are in comparison, to ensure I get the correct size. " Huo-Lun follows me and lets me do the measurements of the area and her body size, I can reduce the cave's mouth size by about 1/2 and it'll still be wide enough for a dragon 1.8X her size to fit through easily. " Alright, I have the measurements, I'll start making it right away. " I walk back to my base and see its broken up, some of the equipment is busted, and such. " GOD DAMN GRIFFINS! " I repair all of it after using the rest of my cobble stone and mud, so I need to gather more. I then go out, chop down roughly 20 more trees, I gather cobblestone and mud, and at the end I have over 300 logs, 200 ' blocks ' of cobblestone, and 100 'blocks' of mud. I head back home and begin building the gate. 2 Hours later, near dusk... Alright! That's done. I now have some bricks, I've reinforced the cave mouth, AND it has the gate that only Huo-lun and I can open. It works. After all that, I decide its time to head to bed, as I'm far too tired to do anymore, I need to eat, and my shoulder has healed. So I cook some meat on the camp fire, eat it, make a pot, drain the water through the woven fabric to remove anything big, then boil it to deal with anything else, drink it Bleh, warm water tastes terrible, oh well, what am I going to do? and crawl up, and fall asleep in my 'bed' lets see what happens tomorrow.... > Chapter 3 Here come the guards! And..... an element? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- *yawn* ' Switches hearing back to avali ' "What do we do? I haven't seen this house here before, what lives here?" Oh no.... sounds like guards. Must be doing a route, as I live close to a road. "Whatever does live here, sure built this thing quickly and wait.... feathers? Either a Pegasus or a Griffin" Well great, I hope they aren't damn pegasi, that would be a pain to deal with, unless.... wait.... are you SERIOUS?! I have that ambassador I bought and the tf2 inventory?! It doesn't carry over! Yay! Even MORE storage space. Wait.... THE INVIS WATCH / CLOAK AND DAGGER / BRAINDEAD RINGER?! I'll take THAT thank you very much! Alright, I'm keeping THIS incase a certain sun princess does something stupid. Switching my hearing back to human, I get close to my opening hatch ( I actually created a trap door for it, so its closed off ) and peek down, good, just two earth ponies, one stallion, one mare. Alright, time to see if this'll work. " Hey! What are you doing near my home! " I almost yell with fake anger. The stallion, which has brown fur, dark green mane, roughly 5ft 11in' tall says " Where are you?! Show yourself! " They both draw their weapons, both use a sword and shield combo. " Listen, I don't want a fight, I just wanted to know why you're near my home, honestly, I didn't think the guard patrolled this area. But anyways, put your weapons away and I'll reveal myself, however, you need to calm down. Oh, and one last thing, you're about to trip on a piece of metal " Just as a finish that last part the stallion trips and falls flat on his face. " HA! Watch where you're stepping next time you idiot! " " Never call him an idiot you whorse! " The mare, which has white fur, deep blue mane, and is roughly 5ft 2in' tall almost yelled with anger. " Hey, not MY fault he didn't look where he was going, anyways, I've just got to ask, why don't people look UP?" Putting as much emphasis on the word 'UP' as I can. They look up and see me, a non pegasi or griffin staring back at them. " WHAT ARE YOU MONSTER?! " They both yelled at nearly the top of their lungs. I quickly cover where I think my ears are. Idea! Lets lie and say I always have incredibly sensitive hearing, also, I thought of this while they yelled. " OW! Watch it with your volume! That hurts you know! " Lets hope this works. The mare quickly replies " Ha! The monster cannot stand loud noises! * Screams as loud as possible * " Ok, THAT did hurt, even with human hearing! Oh ho! Looks like she hurt her partner there as well! " SHUT UP YOU DAMN IDIOT! I'M NO MONSTER AND YOU'RE HURTING YOUR FRIEND THERE AS WELL! " The mare quickly looks down and sees her partner covering his ears " Oh.... Well if we cannot use noise, take this! " The mare threw her sword at me, THREW IT! I just felt....odd, my body went on instinct, I caught the sword by pressing both of my palms against the flat part of the blade and threw it into my wall. " Nice try, miss, but that was a 'miss' of a throw, seriously, though. You need far better aim, if it is me you want to maim. " Why in the hell did I just rhyme? Oh wait.... is part of my OC's personality mixing with mine? Scheisse.... that.... might not be good. The mare grumbled and grabbed the stallions sword and did the same thing. Threw it, again. Same action, same result. " Did you honestly expect something different to happen? Seriously, its like I'm trying to fight a child. But really, if you calm down, I'll come down and give your weapons back, if not, I'll just keep them, and throw you off my property, or even better, you two can be a snack for my dragon friend... " I put a large smile on my face as Huo lun lands right behind them. They turn their heads and see her, they begin to shake. " Alright.... lets just keep it calm here, we won't attack again.... right dust? And creature.... what was your name? " My grin gets even bigger, but turns to a frown when Huo lun starts to open her mouth. " No Huo lun, they aren't a snack, yet, lets see if they will make a smart choice, or a stupid one, BEFORE doing anything " With that, Huo closed her mouth and walked off to her cave, I grab my katana's and machine pistols then the guards swords and jump down. " Now with THAT settled, my name is Kalali, I am an Avali. It is great to meet you, in spite well... the fact that we got off on the wrong... what's the term for your kind? Foot? Hoof? What? I'm just sticking with Foot, for me. Anyways, I'll give your swords back, on two conditions, firstly, tell me your names, and secondly, could we possibly be friends? " Why did I just say that? I would've waited on that part..... but, for some reason it felt.... right? Gah! Yeah, my OC's personality is being added to my own, or perhaps it is because I'm eager to have friends again for once? I don't know! Either way, I suppose I should just roll with it. " Well.... my name is Silver sword, that is my partner, Dust blade, but why would you just ask us to be friends? We just threatened your life! " Silver replied. " Thing is, I never actually was in any danger, I have weapons that are beyond your kinds current comprehension, save of course if I gave a very detailed explanation about how they worked, and also, the worst that would've happened to you was that you would've just woken up near or almost IN the town that's close by with a rather comicly large bruise on your head from me due to knocking you out. All I ever do is make empty threats or shows of force to scare things off, save of course if something tries to hurt me, OR anyone who I consider a friend or ally. THEN they pay the price, and most of the time, its the ultimate price, their life. " I replied. Wow, I never have gotten that in depth with someone I never even knew, damnit, this isn't good, if Avali thought processes are being added to my humanoid ones I need to override them. " Wait.... so you were able to of killed us at any moment? So that whole thing with the dragon was just a ruse? " Smart, but not smart enough. " Yes, indeed I could've, but no, the whole thing with Huo was NOT a ruse, she actually Might've eaten you had I not ordered her to stop. She owes me her life, after all. Plus, I want friends, not foes. " Screw it, I'm acting on these impulses for once, lets see how it pans out. Dust blade finally speaks up and says " Well, if you say your sorry for calling me an idiot, I'll accept that request for being a friend " he holds out his hand and I shake it. After finishing the handshake I say " I'm sorry for calling you an idiot, and by the way, here are your swords back " I say as I pass out one of the swords. " They're actually rather dull, and brittle, but are magicaly enchanted to cut through things easier, they can fight against other blades that are the same just fine, but against non enchanted blades, that are stronger, they will shatter easily, these aren't a fighting weapon, these are a hunting weapon, watch " I pull out my iron katana, and take one good strike at the other blade and * CLASH * it shattered into pieces. Dust asks " So.... our blades AREN'T meant for combat? " " Nope, I'm afraid they aren't, see, I'm assuming the one who provided these blades must've tricked you, as these types of enchantments work well against each other, but when they hit a blade that is stronger, WITHOUT an enchantment, the enchantment fails, as the blades are too brittle and dull to even cut butter without it. So, yes, these are NOT combat weapons, hell, not even hunting weapons, they're display pieces, honestly, if your whole guard are outfitted with blades like these, you could easily be overwhelmed by anyone who has armor on and can swing a proper sword. " Hey, I'm being honest, these weapons are complete shit in terms of blades, and I do NOT like seeing poorly made blades, at all. " Also, your armor is made out of gold, or is that gold plated steel? " " Gold, and why do you ask? " OH MY GOD! Alright, I KNOW appearances ARE important celly, but GOLD armor? God damnit! Fuck, I don't care how much materials it takes, these two are getting better swords and armor if they become good friends of mine, the shields are made out of wood and steel / iron, so they're ok. But the armor and swords NEED to be fixed. " Alright, here's the deal, that armor, and those swords, are shit, plain and simple. Don't tell anyone about it. Gold is a very weak metal, hell, even iron out preforms it, as firstly, gold is HEAVY, far heavier than iron, steel would be even better, as its stronger, steel armor and weapons tend to work better than nearly anything else in terms of stronger armor and better weapons. Look, I could craft some better armor and weapons for you, provided we have a good friendship from here on out, I'm not going to do so yet, so understand that you'll be stuck with these terrible weapons for a while, but don't worry, once we become good enough friends, I might make you two some better equipment, but for one main price.... " I let it sink in. " W-W-Whats the pri-i-ice? " Silver asked with a lot of fear. " Simple! Just to be able to live here in peace, have friends, and have fun. Is that, that large of a request? " I ask with a smile on my face. " Oh, and by the way, don't tell anyone about me just yet, not until I have a bit better equipment, and a better foot hold here " The both of them just look stupefied and it took about 1-2 minutes for their brains to start working again. " Lets see how this works out. We need to get back to our rounds, we won't tell anypony... " Silver attempts to say but I interrupt. " Ach! No! Its ANYONE not ' Anypony ' that's racist you know, as wouldn't anyone who ISN'T a pony feel insulted by that? " Both of them look like deer in headlights for about 10 seconds and stare off for about a minute and they come to a realization. " By celestia! You're right! " Silver replied. " Look at that! You're learning. " I ask with a large amount of sarcasm and a fair amount of fake insult. Dust starts to laugh his ass off and silver just gets slightly red and huffs. " Ha ha! She got ya there Silver! Still though, that isn't right. Say you're sorry, Kalali. " Dust asked with a hint of annoyance " I'm sorry Silver, you left yourself wide open for that, plus, I can't help myself when a chance like that comes along. Besides, it was all in good fun " I replied. " I accept your apology, but I really want to know, HOW did you befriend a dragon?! " So, she's asking about that story? Fine then, might as well tell her about my fight with the griffins, but I'm going to leave the shouting part out, don't want all my tricks to be revealed. I tell both of them that story and they go wide eyed at the thought that I took down 20 griffin hunters by myself, and just a small cut to the shoulder for it? But they're curious about what device I used to end them. " Sorry, but I can't tell you, honestly, if I did, then you would know what to look for, I cannot let that type of tech fall into the wrong hands, as if it does.... bad stuff happens. I mean REALLY bad things happen. " They seemed rather in denial about that. As silver asked " These types of weapons could allow a large advantage to our guard, they would allow far better protection of our citizens, and allow us to reduce the amount of times lives are claimed by wild animals as we don't even have to be up close as anypony can... " I caught her quickly. " Argh! ANYONE! A-N-Y-O-N-E! Remember? " I say with a fair amount of irritance and annoyance in my voice. She then continued. " Right, we won't even have to be up close, as ANYONE can wield these weapons and fight from afar far better than any crossbow. " I then procede to tell them about what could happen, such as explosives being made to use the same type of tech, allowing far longer range, then eventually, leading up to WW2, they were stunned silent as I continued, I still didn't explain how the weapons worked, learning of a weapon, the atomic bomb, capable of destroying a nation with a simple press of a button, they nearly fainted at the fact that it had been used, not once, but twice during WW2. And that once they're made, it will just keep getting deadlier. " NOW do you truly understand why I CANNOT allow any more races to have access to this type of technology? All it does is advance and KILL. The more it kills, the quicker it advances. Sure, you use more deadly tech to prevent allies from dying, but what happens if your enemies out pace you in development? You die, your NATION dies. Then the cycle repeats, until only ONE nation is left. That is how it is, for any species, non violent or not. It will happen, it might take longer if your kind get the tech, but it WILL happen. " I WILL need to keep an eye out for the black market, as I know for a fact even equestria will have one. I'll need to stop whoever make these things once I disassemble them with the recycler I plan on making. After that, I'll need to hunt down whoever supplied those griffins, I'll need to find a serial number, or something like that, as nothing who makes something such as this wouldn't leave their mark SOMEWHERE on it. So I'll need to get some tools to disassemble it the old fashion way, then throw the rest into the recycler. " Oh, one last thing, make sure other guards do NOT patrol this area, I don't want any more unexpected house guests, as honestly, I'm going to be having a large castle like fort set up, with some traps, just letting you know, since I truly hope our friendship stays true. " And there it is again, those impulses, damnit. " Alright, we won't tell anyp-anyone, about this place, but I can't be sure to keep other guards away, but how are you going to build a castle? " Dust replied. I point toward Huo's cave and then to the one handy little item I have, the matter manipulator. Dust then asks " What is that little orange thing going to do with building a castle? Looks more like a tool to hit something with that a building tool " " Watch this then. " I reply with a large smirk. There was a tree that I wanted to remove from my flat land area, so I opened up the manipulator and the watched as the tree started to shake, and it got worse, then it collapsed and turned into a nice pile of logs. They just had their jaws dropped by that, then I took all the logs and make an extension to my current place as a porch with a roof overhang. They were doing a pretty good impression of a fish out of water. " Yeah, THIS is called the Matter manipulator, can't harm living things though, well, save for trees, other than that, it can't harm a fly, but its great for mining, building, chopping trees, gathing liquids EVEN lava and poison without trouble, and more. Can't exactly tell you HOW it works yet, because I don't trust you completely, yet. But I may in due time. " Once they returned to normal... Silver asked " So hold on, this thing, can build castles, destroy mountains, chop trees, gather liquid from water to lava, and far more, and yet it cannot harm any living thing other than a tree? That is amazing! But you can't show us how it is made? Why not?! It could revolutionize how ponies.... " I stop her right there. " NOT PONIES! PEOPLE! ANYONE! EVERYONE! PEOPLE! Sorry, but its AnyONE, EveryONE, and PEOPLE for all types of creatures, not just ponies. " She got a rather angry glare, but dust kept his cool, and actually nodded in understanding. " FINE! It could Revolutionize how PEOPLE do things today! Mining, building, and more would be far safer AND faster! It would be far easier to move the water back to cloudsdale and many other things! Honestly what could happen if this type of tech DID come into play? " Did she seriously ask that? I'll see if dust is smarter than he seems. " Dust, care to explain to quick silver here why it would be such a bad idea? Or should I? " Dust actually nods and says. " Look Silver, what would happen if, oh I don't know, someone had one of those things, and went after the supports of canterlot? How quickly could they send it down the mountain? Judging by how quickly our Avali friend here 'chopped' down that tree, I'd say less than 20 minutes, and that's for EVERY support of canter lot. It would only take 1-4 of the right ones before canterlot goes down. That would be, what? less than a minute? See why this stuff is dangerous? " Silver just looked like a deer in headlights staring off like she heard the worst truth possible and quietly said... " You're right, that technology IS dangerous, which is why...... " she looks at me and... oh shit. " WE NEED TO GET IT FROM HER! GIVE IT TO THE PRINCESSES! THEY'LL KNOW WHAT TO DO! " Crap! Not good! She starts striking at me, I quickly jump back up into my home and make a wooden club to knock her out. Luckily, dust was actually smarter than he seemed, and tried to hold her back, but was hit in the head by her shield, and mouthed ' Knock her out! ' so that's what I intended to do. I also make a shield and drop down. And * CLONG! * She's out like a light. " Mother of mercy.... I did NOT want to do that! " Dust got up and said his mind. " I have to agree to that, seriously, while yes, your tech IS dangerous, you know better than to use it wrongfully, right? While I may believe that celestia knows far better than I do, I sure as hell can make some decisions from time to time. " So a rebellious sort? GREAT! " Of course I know better, doing such horrid deeds with such a powerful and amazing tool is just one of many things I despise. " I spit out the last word with a lot of venom in it. Dust agrees and grabs his unconscious friend and asks. " So we're clear, you won't do anything bad with that, and we'll agree not to tell anyone, and attempt to keep other guards away. " I nod then I add. " Yep, we'll be friends from here on out, so long as silver doesn't do something stupid like that again, oh, and you might want to get that hit looked at, I think I see blood. " I say the last part with a bit of worry. Dust puts his hand to his head and see some, but not very much, blood. " Uh oh, I better get going to nurse redheart, have a nice day, Kalali. Hope when we meet again and when we do Silver isn't so much of a moron. " I wave bye and they go. I watch them from here to the town and they make it. So I get back to doing what I was doing, but notice something in my H.U.D that surprises me, I notice I could warp to the ship, but I bet it wasn't over equis, by my luck. So I'll need to place a flag, which meant I needed woven graphene, so I start to work. I happen to get lucky and find a coal vein and mine it, I end up with about 20 coal and then make about 50 woven graphene, I needed the coal for later, I also need to find tungsten, along with other things, so I make a flag and name it ' Testing 1 ' and I then hit accept and warp to ship. HOLY SHIT! ITS TERRIFYING! I end up in what is considered a basic BYOS ship from the frackin mod, I face palm, of COURSE I couldn't have it the easy way, damnit. But what is this? A FUCKING LARGE FTL DRIVE?! HELL YEAH! Now lets check the fuel and.... oh scheisse, over 100000 fuel?! How is that possible?! Oh well! I'm taking any perk I can get, question is.... where is that gate-way? Need to find a lush planet, that is, if this one doesn't count. I warp down to the planet I'm above and notice two things, firstly, its still equis, secondly, I'm on TOP of my house, and thirdly, I remembered I needed to craft the fucking RPG growth mod's book. So I craft it, pick the ninja class ( My favorite ) and notice the hardcore option is gone, and that my health and all that are fine. In case you have no idea what that means, it means that, no problems with reduced health, or anything like that. Another bloody perk? Ah well, thank my lucky stars. Heh, S.T.A.R.S, I wonder if I'll ever meet Nemesis or Gilgamesh? Who knows? Anyways... I quickly get back to working. gathering more and more materials, mainly cobblestone, and then I begin building the walls, gate, lock, and towers of the place, it already looks like a stone castle, but I add a few pit fall traps, a few dead fall traps ( same thing used to catch and kill the cockatrices ), along with 4 boulder fall traps ( Remember those rock traps in skyrim? Multiply the amount of rocks by 5-8 and have the same size of rocks with PROPER aiming of the rope, which is near the middle of the trap, and you have what I made. ), I also move the walls and have it so that they go all the way back to Huo's home, now NOTHING can get inside her home, other than another dragon, me, anyone she decided to trust, OR something with a LOT of magic power, I.E those princesses. Well, since the matter manipulator made this take roughly 2 hours, I still have a lot of daylight left and if I woke up in the morning, which I think I did, I'll have around.... hm.... hoping their time system is the same as back home, I'll have about... from roughly 8:00AM when I woke up, to about 7:00Pm when the sun goes down during summer, but it feels like its either spring or fall, so it would be 8:00AM - 5:30PM. But if its winter then I'll have a problem, gets light at about 6:45AM and gets dark 11 hours later, not good. I hope its spring right now, and judging by the leaves on the trees, I'm right. I say as I look around after finishing my new home, deconstructing my old one and making some new crafting stations that I need. I have all the primitive crafting areas ( My current ones, which are: Inventor's table, Primitive furnace, Anvil, wooden workbench, foraging table, Spinning wheel, machining table, 2X Wooden centrifuge, 2X handmill, Avali Nano-lathe, Avali Nano-loom, Avali Weapon Workbench, apiary crafting station, and an Armor-works. ) at the bottom floor of the main building in the center, then of which, I go up to the top, which has a balcony and place down a stone roof, wooden floor, and carpet, I'll need glass for what I want to do. I also need silicon. But for that, I need sand. So since I have Food, water, Shelter, and most of the rest, its time to find some sand. Reminds me, I think I saw a fair amount back at that lake, so I switch my hearing back to avali ( I am NOT being snuck up on ) and went off to the pond I got my water from. I arrived but I saw something I didn't expect, what are the elements in order? Generosity, Laughter, ********, Honesty, Loyalty, Magic. What's one missing, and guess who I see at the pond? I know you can figure it out, if you have a brain. The element of Kindness herself, Fluttershy. And HOLY HELL! She is short but her brea NO! Mind outta the gutter, I'm not male anymore, I have to deal with it, although.... I seem to be a mix of Avali and human, as I have breasts with.... 'Ahem' those *parts*, on them. Along with the private areas of humans as well. My guess? I'm a raptor, but technically, griffins have the same... *parts* as humans here, same with ponies, albeit, slightly different. And since I'm a raptor... I'm either part human, or part griffin or just Anthrofied, I'm still guessing human though. Oh shit! I duck down out of my mental battle with my mind that I'm still straight to avoid Fluttershy seeing me, good thing I was behind a bush. I watch her, and wait. That little devil of a rabbit, angel, started pointing at my bush, I could actually understand it. ' Something is in that bush, I'm going to deal with it. " Aw crap, not good. I decide all or nothing, point my manipulator out of the bush, which fluttershy notices, and take the sand I needed, and bolted! I just kept running until I was back at base, I shut the door behind me, locked it, and quickly got to work. Switched my hearing back to human and quickly throw the sand into a handmill, which means I have to do this manually, so I throw the sand in and surprise! I have to crank it.... damnit starbound logic! I needed help here! I quickly make glass then a tinkering table, alchemy table, and green house. Then I heard knocking, god damn knocking. I heard a soft voice ask " Who's there? I promise I won't hurt you, Angel bunny and I saw you by the lake, can you please come out? I bet you're a nice pony. " That last word, PONY, irritated me, as that is racist / specieist, and that is far wrong. I say out of irritance " First question, not going to tell you, yet. Second part, I don't know if you will, or won't. Second question, no, I can't come out, I'm working on something, and I needed sand as a last moment thing for it to work. And the last part, I'm NOT a pony, so don't call me one. Look, miss, I'm sorry for being rude, but it irritates me how often your kind say ' ponies this, ponies that ' rather than what the proper term would be, PERSON, P-E-R-S-O-N. Person, in its meaning, can mean a being of ANY race, not just ponies, as would you call a minotaur a pony? Nope. That would be insulting. Would you call a Griffin a pony? Nope. Same reason as the minotaur. So again, the proper terms for those types of things are: AnyONE, not ANYPONY, everyONE, not everyPONY, and PERSON, not PONY. That clear? " I hear a small amount of crying at first, but then it stops, then a lot of apologizing comes after that. " Listen, don't feel bad. Happens, but saying sorry won't make up for the mistake, if it keeps happing. Actions speak louder than words. " I replied. " And now I'm done. I had to do that, or else something wouldn't of gotten done quick enough. " Which was getting some silicon. " So just give me a few more minutes and I'll be right out, I just need to add a few finishing touches on my project, THEN I'll be able to come out and talk, this is a rather difficult thing to make, so let me concentrate. " I quickly place down the tinkering and alchemy tables and craft some stuff, I need core fragments for what I plan on making, along with tungsten, MM's ( Manipulator module ), UM's ( Upgrade Module ), and TC's ( Tech Card ), and many other things. No, scratch that, I need EVERYTHING I can get. But something surprises me, I have 6 MM's, how do I have them? No damn idea. All I know, is that I need 2 more for a power output upgrade. I quickly get ready for fluttershy and get back down to the bottom of my home, all or nothing here. " Alright, I'm done, thanks for being patient, I needed to get that project finally finished. Now, give me a sec and I'll get the door. " Alright, I have about 30 seconds, now, what should I do? Shock and Awe with a mix of kindness? Just say I'm an alien? Gah screw it. I'm going with Shock and Awe. I go up to the door and open it, there is fluttershy, conversing with the animals near my home. Angel points at me and fluttershy looks over, her eyes widen, and guess what she does? Essentially, she glomps me. She says " You're so cute! " Cute?! Are you bloody serious?! CUTE?! God damnit.... wait.... why did I think tha.... aw crap, yep, personality merge, well, my OC hated being called cute just as much as Lightning Bliss, if not more so, but anyways, now what? " Oh! I'm sorry for that.. " She moves back and hides behind her mane, now THAT is cute. I say through slightly grit teeth " Its alright, can you PLEASE not call me cute again? I do not like that, ok? Oh, and if you want, feel free to come in, but no going higher than the bottom and 2nd floor. Any higher has experiments and possibly dangerous equipment. So yeah, avoid going any higher. " " Oh, ok. I'm Fluttershy, what is your name? " " My name is Kalali, I am an avali, it is a pleasure to meet you, Fluttershy, if you wish, you may come inside. " She seemed a little hesitant at first, but eventually agreed. " Ok, come on angel, lets go. " " Ach! No. No Pets allowed inside currently, not until I'm able to seal off the higher floors. I don't want anything other than completely sentient and sapient beings in here until then. As pets wander, when they do, they might find something that they really SHOULDN'T of found. Mess with it, and cause a huge problem. That isn't happening here. So, no. Your pet bunny / rabbit there has to stay out until I fix that. But if it makes them feel any better, they can be right outside the door, or patrol the perimeter, but do NOT go by the huge gated cave by the back of my property, dangerous stuff is in there, I had to gate it off until I can figure out how to deal with it. I already have a solution underway, so don't worry about it. Just avoid it for the time being. Do you understand? " Angel does NOT look happy, but I open my mouth and reveal my teeth and say with just a look ' Go against the rules and you're my dinner ' angel then adopts a face of fear rather than anger and quickly hops off. Fluttershy looks a bit sad but I say " Sorry, but honestly, I cannot allow pets in here yet, I may very well just separate the building all together, or make a bunker, I don't know, point is, is that until I can seal it, it is just too dangerous. You don't want angel getting hurt, do you? " She nods and we walk inside. " Oh wow, this is a nice home. " Seems as if she agrees. " Yeah, its ok, not as good as it could be, it honestly needs windows, but I don't have glass yet, and if you're wondering, I built this myself, all by myself, it could be SO much more, I just didn't have the time. I actually plan on adding more rooms, and a few guest rooms just incase someone wants to come over for when I get some friends. " What? I always plan ahead, seriously, I plan on making this thing BIG, seriously, it'll have turrets, traps, EVERYTHING! " You made this by yourself? Oh my! That is nice. But how did you do that? If you don't mind me asking, that is. " I already showed two ponies so I honestly don't see the harm in it. " Well.... that's the easy part, actually, this " I show the matter manipulator " is how I did that, watch this. " I take the manipulator and open a 2 x 2 hole in my wall. " See? Notice how it did that? Now, put your hand through it. " She see it isn't an illusion, and her hand actually goes through the hole. I replace it. " Now try " and it impacts like normal. " Oh wow. So how did that little orange thing do that? If you don't mind me asking, that is. " I basically explain how it works to her, and it shocks her to hear that it can do as much as it can. I calm her down and I make her promise not to tell anyone, not anypony, ANYONE. Yes, I had to correct her twice on just that alone, a total of 6 times with different types of words. She wasn't able to connect the dots, as to what it could do to canterlot, but I'm assuming she will figure it out eventually. " Well, I think I need to get back to work, I have far too much to do, and not enough time to do it in, you may drop by at any time, but please promise me this, do NOT tell a single person, not pony, person, as in, any member of any species, about me yet. I want to get a better foot hold here before I reveal myself, ok? " She nodded and called angel, then left through the front gate. Gah, I need to be more careful, hopefully she doesn't tell a soul, as if she does, that will be bad. I already told two guards, and now one of the elements know. All I can hope for is that Rainbow CRASH doesn't try to do anything stupid. As if she does... I won't have any mercy, I don't take well to being attacked, at all. I pack up and head out then find a new mine, but the things inside there are not very kind. > Chapter 4 Mine's and miniguns, guards and princesses, and backstory....? > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I arrive at the mine entrance and oh boy, it looked old. Honestly, looks like it hasn't been used for at least 50 years. It still is supported though. I go to explore it but I realize my own fatal flaw, I don't have torches, nor a flashlight. So I instinctively reach for where my phone would be, only to somehow grab it like it was there. Wait.... what the hell?! I don't even have pockets! Does that mean I can access some of the stuff from home?! Hm.... I decide to try to pull out a little gift, my balisong / butterfly knife, and surprise! It came out. How is this even possible? I shouldn't be able to grab these! Ah well! Flash-light! I tap the flashlight function on my phone and oh boy, is it bright. But what I see makes my eyes light up like the 4th of july! A Traveler's meter. Take a wild guess at what I found? The abandoned mineshaft found on lush planets. Case and point. Although..... I bet there is far more than just one. At least starbound logic seems to help me here. My guess is that since Luna didn't return until at best 3-4 years ago, she couldn't of found the ship that was orbiting the planet. Or the creature that crashed here. Time for some spelunking! Although, should I try to find those poptops? Honestly, core fragments would prove to be incredibly useful. Not to mention the fact that I doubt that many creatures on equis have managed to reach near the core. And if they have reached it once or twice, chances are they either died, or came out with little to nothing. But wait.... Oh fuck me. THE RUIN! If my OC hasn't destroyed it yet, then I'll have to do the WHOLE starbound storyline, god damnit! This'll be such a pain in the ass.... I then go into the mine and start mining every single piece of ore I can find. The Snaunt's, Batong's, scaveran's, and gleap's, are annoying as hell and I've even seen a poptop here and there, along with a nutmidge or two, but no sign of the cave entrance to the poptop den. Then I see the platforms that only go down in a fairly narrow area which means, BINGO! But I'll explore that later, instead, I go and explore the rest of the mine, my loot ends up being: Iron ore = 73, Copper ore = 107, Lead = 30, Magnesite = 56, Sulfur = 12, Core fragments = 31, Gold ore = 13, Silver ore = 21, a fucking FLAK CANNON called the Techlaki Starstopper which does Shadow damage. Should be pretty effective, some 60 throwing spears, 200 darts, some bombs, THATS RIGHT! BOMBS! 24 of them to be exact, and that's it. Well, other than 4K fucking pixels. After that I go down into the area that the platforms lead to and find something surprising, an Avikan. Sorry, a DEAD Avikan, oh wait... make that 7 DEAD Avikans.... oh shit. I better check their corpses, I start looking inside their backpacks, finding things like water, bone, a broken gun or two, but the best thing I find is not one, not two, but THREE Avikan sealed Caches. Wonder what's in them? I'll find out later. Didn't find anything useful other than that. But the bones that are exposed on the dead Avikans are what worries me, scorched bones. Avikans are resistant to heat, by quite a lot. But from what I know, their bones are FAR more resistant, but they're not immune to lava, or anything, but something has to be pretty fucking hot to scorch Avikan bones. There are three possible causes, Dragon, Hydra, or worst case scenario, Princess Celestia. Not exactly sure HOW hot Dragon or Hydra fire breath is, but I'm guessing its up there, but to be honest, some of them look like the bones began to MELT, this isn't going to be good for me if Celestia is the one who killed them. This just means I have to be quick about gathering supplies, better gear, and allies, preferably someone with a lot of power to help me, but they have to be either Neutral or Good. Chaotic or not, I need them. Gilgamesh would be a perfect example. I just hope he still isn't fighting those damn things. That would be a problem. Delsin Rowe could also be a choice, but then I would have to deal with Nisled, damnit. I just keep thinking of things to get but I get snapped out of my train of thought by a roar I hear while I'm looting crates. Guess who? Mother Poptop. And oh SHIT is it close. I duck down, switch my hearing to ' half deaf ' and ready my brand new Flak Cannon ( Put it simply, its a fucking giant, shoulder mounted, shotgun or FGSMS for short ) along with my Katana's and look for big ugly ( Short name for Mother Poptop, also a short name for many other bosses that I know I might have to fight ) and I notice the health bar for it appear in my vision, great, hopefully this will be easy. Nothing can go wrong now. Just as soon as I finish that thought * CHOMP * " AAAAAHHHHH! " A fucking Poptop bit my damn leg, let me tell you, it HURT worse than being just grazed by a bullet, I swing my katana and swat it off my leg before cutting it in half, then I look to me right and see three things, firstly, the escape route, secondly, a swarm of baby poptops, and thirdly, take a wild fucking guess, the mother poptop, staring me down. I just draw my flak cannon and say " NOPE! Fuck you, fuck your kids, now BURN. IN. HELL! " And use the secondary fire function, which was a penetrating shot, so it was pretty much a huge wall of super flechette. Killed every single baby poptop, but big ugly still survived, albeit, without much hp left, but it closes the gap and smacks me into a wall, nothing broken, due to my augments, but I know I'll die of blood loss if I'm not fast. So I pull out my scythe and began striking, it was so very fucking close to dead, but it hit me again, then, blood in my vision, I scream " DIE YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A LIVING THING! " I do something I never thought I could've, I changed forms, this was an aspect that my OC got after defeating the ruin, you see, when my OC defeated it, she absorbed a fair amount of the ruins essence which gave her a great boost to many stats that revolved around attacking and avoiding being attacked, but it changed her appearance a lot which is how she gained two more tails and two bat wings sprouting from her back and her personality changed a bit, but she still died, and when she received the last shard of the cultivator, she changed, more, reverting back to her original self, personality and appearance save for the tails and wings, she thought she returned to normal. In truth however, she was far different, other than the main changes, and bonuses that having both the ruin and the cultivator inside give her, they came with an unbelievable perk / downside, partial immortality, sure, she could still die just as easily as before from attacks and such, but not by age, disease, and sickness, she could not believe it that she outlived her own pack members, in spite the fact of being one of the oldest, as her parents had perished long before she became a protector, and was broken for a long time. That was until one day, she was out, trying to be rid of her depression, and fell, got a concussion which altered her mind to be more similar to humans, in more ways than one, she become colder, and crueler to those who weren't in her pack, which at the time, meant everyone, but when she went back to Avalon, an avali insulted her in the absolute worst possible way, after asking what happened to her pack and hearing her story, they thought she told a lie, and couldn't believe her, and thus made the last mistake they ever made, they said that she killed them all herself, when she heard that, she snapped, her form changed into what is called the ' Ruin ' form, her eyes become orange with slits, her feathers become poisonous, her strength, speed, agility, dexterity, vigor, and energy reserves increased and she was able to inflict bleed, Toxic weaken, Embrittle, and toxify with just a punch and gained a glowing red aura around her. While her Endurance, Intellect, vitality, reasoning, and other mental functions decreased due to anger, the more angry she got, the worse it was. She literally RIPPED off the head of the avali, screamed as loudly as possible, left Avalon, and never came back. She destroyed countless planets and stars just out of rage, until she finally calmed down. She was then wracked with guilt, she had possibly killed over 100000 people, and just didn't stop. One night, she fell asleep, and saw the ruin and cultivator in her mind, battling, while the ruin had a hold of her, and the cultivator was fighting it to get her from it. The real Kalali, the one who wasn't grabbed, went to them, and begged for the fighting to stop. Eventually, she said ' Fuck it ' and absorbed both of them into her being from her mind, erased their memories, kept her own, and went back to her normal form, and when she went out to right her wrongs, she turned into her Cultivator form, which was mainly white with cyan blue highlights, when she reached Avalon, she was hunted for many years, eventually, she knew what she had to do, she made a device that could completely mask a warp to a planet, but it was experimental, she had to fake her death, so, she had hidden a ship with a LOT of fuel and a large FTL near an unknown planet with brand new life signs, not knowing if it was truly safe, but knew it was able to have her live there. So when the they caught up with her, she rigged her ship to auto target them to make it seem like she was still there, and even make a fake life signature in the control room for the weapons. She waited, and waited, she saw the biggest weapon she's ever seen on a ship begin to aim at hers, she knew it was time, and activated the device, it sent her to the planet, and her ship was destroyed, the device had left her soul open with which mine merged with hers, turned her / me back into her / my normal form, and blocked her memories from my mind until my mind and soul was used to her body, then the thought process, memories and such, mixed with mine at a slow rate. At that time, she had lived for about 150 years. She had knowledge on nearly every single type of thing that can or cannot be useful and far more. When I was finally out of remembering everything, I had already gathered everything from the dungeon area, transformed back into my normal form, healed up, and kept going through the dungeon. I even managed to unlock areas I didn't even know about! But now? Having two sets of memories is irritating, honestly, but I've learned so damn much, now I can somehow recall nearly everything I could ever need, every recipe Kalali learned, EVERYTHING! Its insane! My short term and long term memory ability must've sky rocketed. My mind used to be selective on what I remembered and what I didn't, now? I can remember everything both lives had with complete clarity. Every conversation, every food they ate, everything. Its insane. After leaving the mine, I switch my hearing back to the 'human' setting and I decide to see if I can will a set of avali headphones into existence, and it worked, so I put them on and willed a converter for my phone into existence as well and start to play one of my favorite tunes. This is the normal version. But THIS is the version I listen to. So I just kept listening at human level hearing, with which, the headphones somehow adjusted the volume for no matter what my hearing was set at, save for deaf, I could hear it fine. I just continued on my way back to my home, I spotted a few creatures from the mine, mainly a few poptops and gleaps, annoying bastards, I just slice them to pieces, and keep going on my way back home while Whistling the tune without a care, cutting down any sort of beast that came at me, but being sure to end it in one hit, it doesn't deserve to suffer. I eventually got back and got to work with all the new items I received. I managed to make a few rather dangerous things, mainly, a few Avali guns, which included my favorite, and most badass gun, the MG1 Hailstorm that's right, a FUCKING MINIGUN! Now, it resized for me, same for the other guns I made, but it seems to fire a projectile the size of a 22 round, and the barrels are HUGE, so my guess is that the barrels will thin out as I go up in power, as honestly, why would you need a fucking 3in' thick barrel for a 22 round? Now back to the guns, I also made the FM1 Firelance, AR1 Blizzard, 2X PD1 Frostbites, and a QRC Type-1. Then the grand Finale, the Avikan sealed Caches. I open one, and get two Nomada protector F-19's, I open another and get a random piece of Avikan armor ot like I can use it since A it won't fit and B it doesn't provide any sort of protection in game, so I'm guessing that applies here, but I'll test it to be sure, but.... huh, its fit for me, an Avali, even has cuts in the back for my wings, and its dyed red and it will fit over my survival gear, might just wear it I open the next one and receive an engineer's belt which is also dyed red and will fit with my survival gear AND something I didn't expect, a Line rifle called the TerveLeaders Bow. Which if I remember correctly, has an enemy seeking secondary fire. I open the last one and receive only one thing, ANOTHER line rifle, the architect. No idea what that one does, as I haven't even gotten it before in a starbound playthrough, even though I've opened roughly 500 Avikan Caches total. Oh, I also received quite a lot of Dranite and the other type of Avikan plates. ( I cannot remember the name for the life of me so it actually appeared as a ??? in the menu ) and a bit of monster bone. Had taken every crate, metal and wooden, from the mine, and placed them around, and stored stuff in them, but when I opened them the normal way ( VIA Prying off the top ) the items were actually neatly stacked inside, I shook the crate, they didn't move, picked it up and turned it upside-down, and they didn't move, STARBOUND LOGIC IS AWESOME! After that, I managed to do something I've been putting off, sealing off the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th floor of my home with sealed doors, I crafted the ' Familiar door ' which was made from glass and iron, then I used it on the entrances of each floor, the inside of the tower for them was basically a spiral staircase that lead all the way up, I also get an outside extension of it with a living room spread out inside the extension, I have it on the 2nd floor as that is where my LEAST dangerous experiments reside, mainly involving genetics and potions so it is SOMEWHAT safe. After that, I completely seal off the rest with more doors. After that, I make some basic wooden furniture for the living room, I also have my kitchen up on the 2nd floor extension, but there will be more. For now, however, I need to do some target practice, I want to re sharpen my skills with shooting a minigun, as the old Kalali did use them, quite a lot. I set up targets, Switch to the ' deaf ' hearing setting and begin with the PD1's first, I actually think to 'load' a mag into the pistol's first and I can feel the energy drain from me but not by a lot per pistol, but doing both was slightly taxing on my mind, by my guess, thanks to the ruin and cultivator, I have a rather large boost to my energy reserves. Then I fire a whole what would be 20 round mag from each before I begin to feel the energy drain again. Then I 'reload' and regenerate. Then I switch to the FM1 and see how well a sniper rifle could work, as soon as I tried to 'load' it, it took nearly all my energy, I could feel my mind was nearly completely drained, I regenerated and tried to 'load' it again but no energy was drained, so it takes almost a full bar of energy to load the FM1, which takes the most energy per shot. I start test firing again, 6 shots before I need to reload for it. So I have roughly a 300 energy reserve. I then pull out the AR1 and load it, it doesn't take much, I regenerate and fire 30 shots before I start to feel the drain again. Then I switch to the QRC and load it, my mind felt dead for a few seconds after that, so it must hold at a minimum of 8 shots. I wait 7 seconds so that my mind can recover and try to load it again and end up barely using any energy, so I'm assuming 9-10 shots. I fire off 9, reload, rest, reload, then I switch to the big gun. The MG1, and it only takes 2 energy per shot if I remember right, but holy hell, I had to reload it 6 times, so I'm guessing the 1000 round per 'mag' range. Perfect. I fire off 100 rounds and reload, then I call it quits for that for the day. I open my book for the RPG growth mod and see a few new things, seems as if this world receives updates like the mods do, interesting. I'll have to remember that for later. I switch my hearing back to avail and hear two things, firstly, wing beats, secondly, hoof steps, a LOT of both. I quickly rush inside and barricade myself on the first floor and seal off the entrances from both above and the door, then I get ready for the worst. " Foul creature! Come out and surrender or face the wrath of the royal guard! " Oh shit are you serious?! God damnit Silver! I knew I shouldn't of let her live. Damnit, well, I never wanted to fight those guard, but I guess if I can't talk them down, I won't have a choice. " Hang on a minute morons! Foul Creature? Who told you about me? An earth pony mare named Silver Sword, right? Well by my guess, since you're here, anything she must've said was- " I was cut off. " SHUT UP CREATURE AND FACE PUNISHMENT! " The guard captain yelled with fury. I wonder... I bet this will work. " Hey guards! You know those loud bangs you heard earlier, right? Guess what made those? ME! I have weapons that can launch up to 1000 metal projectiles per minute and each projectile goes faster than the speed of sound, do the math, no matter how many of you there are, I. Will. Win. I don't want to fight here, nor do I wish to kill, but if it comes to it, I WILL! Now listen up! You have THREE choices: Choice one, You lower your weapons, stop using your magic, and settle the hell down, and we TALK like Civilized people SHOULD. Choice TWO, you leave, and NEVER come back. Or, worst case, Choice THREE! Which means, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. YOU. DIE! Take your bloody pick! As I sure as hell can't be captured, as all I have to do is die, and I'll come right back to life back at my house, so sorry guards, but you're out matched. " Please tell me they fell for it. I really don't want to kill them. " STOP! - " Holy hell! That's Dust! " Kalali isn't a threat ya damn foals! I met her before! Silver just over reacted to one of Kalali's tools and what it can be used for, that's all! " Go on dust! Tell them to back off damnit! I don't want to kill them! " LIES! You're corrupted by the creature! SIEZE HIM! " SHIT! I switch my hearing to ' half deaf ' and its Hero time! " Leave dust alone assholes! - " I burst through the door, minigun at the ready " Now you pissed me off, I never wanted to do this - " I avoid a few arrows and two magic bolts " now fall! " I unleash hell, little did I realize, that my train of thought of not wanting to kill them before, changed the ammo I used, from regular bullets, to a special type of dart like bullet that released a potent tranquilizer inside the target less than an inch into the skin, but it worked nearly as fast at putting them down as a regular round, except it can't kill them. After nearly all of them were down, they started to retreat, I just kept firing and eventually got every single one of them save for dust. I got over to him, switch my hearing back to Avali, and he was starting to cry, as he thought his guard friends had died. " You killed them.... they're all dea- " I cut him off. " No dust, they aren't dead, actually, turns out, a mental command on my weapon switched its ammo type, from ' deadly ' to 'Knock-out' which is why you can still see the rise and fall of their chest's, they're all still alive, go check for yourself. " I remove the cuffs they managed to get on him and he quickly rushes to another stallion that is on the ground, he looks quite similar to dust. Only real difference being the fact that Dust is Shorter, that the stallion in question has a brown mane and is a unicorn. " Father? You alive..? " Wait... WHAT?! That is his father?! Oh shit.... that would've been horrid had I..... I decide to respond quickly. " Dust, your father is currently under an effect that is a mix of sleep and paralysis, it will wear off in about 2-3 hours. They can hear you, and me, currently, but they cannot speak due to the effect. They CAN still see, if you open their eyes. May I say something to him? He lead this charge, is that correct? " I truly hope this can work out for the better. As if it doesn't I'll need to jump planets, soon. But I'm not going to leave for good, I may have two sets of memories, but I sure as hell am NOT leaving this world, who knows what is out there that could attack it? If the ruin is back, the cultivator won't be. " Yeah... he lead the charge, and his name is Solid Strike. Please, don't hurt him. " I nod and sit down beside Solid, and dust goes and helps the other guards that are lying around into a bit more comfort so that they don't wake up with pain, and moves their weapons away from them. " Listen, Solid, I'm sure you understand now why it was such a terrible idea to attack, I warned you, but we got off on the wrong... foot? Hoof? I don't know what it is for your kind - " Dust yells over and says it's Hoof " Right, anyways, listen, I never did actually want to fight, truth be told, and to be honest, right now, I'm giving you my trust, as guess what? You're stuck, immobile, paralyzed, and at MY mercy, if I didn't trust you, to not attack me after you regain your ability to move, I would've killed each and every single one of you by now. Dust included. Understand that, while yes, I have deadly weapons AND abilities, do not assume that I am dangerous just because of what I CAN or COULD do, you cannot assume, it leads to ruin, believe me, I've experienced it many times before, instead, you must KNOW if something is going to be a threat, if something HAS done harm, then it is a POSSIBLE threat, in that case, you arrest it with just a few guards, if it has done harm, and continues to do so, THEN, and ONLY THEN, is it what you believed me to be, THEN is it a KNOW on the part that said thing IS a threat, I'm not threat, so long as I am not threatened by something, or someone. The ONLY time I harmed a guard was clonking Silver Sword on the head with a club to knock her out when she went out of control. Other than that, nothing. So please understand, I will not harm you, nor your friends, family, royalty, or anything like that, unless they have either harmed me, or have committed acts that I consider to be horrid. That is all, Solid. I truly hope you have a nice day, as I have a few things left to do today, mainly something I've been wanting to work on for a while. " Little did I realize that the tranq had worn off mostly as it actually only lasted for 5 minutes, all of the guards were listening intently as the effects wore off, and were rather surprised to hear what I said. I had my eyes closed but I could tell they were up, I just acted as if I didn't know. " So - " I jump up like I didn't expect Solid to be up. " you never wanted to hurt us, but if you wanted to, you could've killed each one of us just like that? I wouldn't of believed it, had I not seen it myself, but- " All of us hear a scream of rage " DIE YOU WHORSE! " Fucking Hell silver! I stand up and get ready as she charges, the guards are just watching with wide eyes, I just wait for the right moment, silver goes for a stab, I push her sword to the side with my palm and grab her arm, I pry the sword from her grip and hit her clean in the forehead and knock her out, again. There I stood, holding a sword, silver unconscious, and roughly 40 guards around me. But then I hear something, the same sound as a unicorn horn and trotting, but I felt it, powerful magic, far more than anything I could've guessed, the trotting sounded of grace and elegancy, I knew what two ponies possessed both of those qualities to the extreme, non other than the two main princesses, Celestia and Luna. I knew I was done, I just put the sword in the earth, and turned around, threw my arms behind my head, and surrendered, I could fight guards, yes, 400 of them? Easy, but two huge power houses? No way. I don't have a hard hitter yet, other than my line rifles, which I would never kill them, so those are out, I open my eyes, and look ahead, and see them, both of them, staring at me with a shocked look, I decide to speak first. " So, what's it going to be? Kill me? - " Celestia actually looked a little shocked at that " Send me to tartarus? Incase me in stone? Prison for many life times? Or are you here just to talk? except what happened to those Avikan in the mine " Celestia looked like a lightbulb went off in her head. " was not my doing, by my guess, it was yours, wasn't it Celestia? " " Avikan? You mean the.... Syon? Those Lizard people? They killed my ponies over 700 years ago- " Wait, 700 years?! Jesus! What, do Avikan's take forever to decay or something?! " so I destroyed them all. You look similar in body shape. Are you related to them.? " She asked with a hint of suspicion. " No, I am not related to their kind, I am a bird, not a lizard, big difference, and they are called Avikan, not Syon. however, my name is Kalali, I am an Avali, now with that out of the way, I will answer any questions you have, to an extent, no going into my personal life other than just to know who I am, I don't want pity, as my life is rather.... tragic, to put it lightly. " I say with a rather sad note at the end. The princesses adopt a look of concern, caution, curiosity, suspicion, and another emotion I can't place. They nod and before they can ask their questions I interrupt them. " Alright, one more thing, I just wanted to finish saying something to Solid Strike here. " The guards get a little angry, I can tell from their stance and I just say to solid " Solid, to answer your question, would I ever use my tools, weapons, or equipment to harm the innocent? No, never. I will never harm the innocent intentionally, ever. That is a rule I have had for my whole life, and it will be that way until the day I die. " I know I lied there, but I can't tell them about what I did, not until I gain their trust, and until I can explain the situation with what happened. But did I really do it? GAH! Having two sets of memories is a bitch! Celestia replies " You answered our biggest concern, Kalali, but one of our other questions is, what did you do with the sy.. Avikan, that were down in that cave? " She asks with a hint of worry, and curiosity. " Well, to answer that question, I found them after I looted the mine, considering creature what was inside, lets just say I'm glad I dealt with it sooner rather than later. " The princesses adopted a look of concern, confusion, and curiosity. Princess Luna asked first " But my sister vanquished everything in that mine! She told me so after I got back from my.... banishment. What manner of creature was inside of that mine that makes you glad you killed it?! " Luna is about to use the RCV, not good! " Hold on! Settle down, most of the creatures I found in there were almost harmless to someone who is properly equipped, but the BIG problem were the creatures known as poptops, here is an example of a 'child' poptop. " I show them a picture of it. The sisters look at it then look at each other with a smug look, then celestia asks " What makes this 'poptop' so dangerous? It is rather cute, isn't it? " Cute?! Alright, time to teach these ponies something important. " Cute? Did you just call them CUTE?! I don't know what you see here, but poptops are dangerous little bastards, sure, when they're younger they aren't that deadly, but when they get older is when they become a REAL problem. Take a look at THIS picture. " I show them a picture of an Adult poptop next to a child poptop with me for a scale, they both paled slightly, then luna asks " So... this is a fully grown poptop? Its huge! Are you saying you fought these things in the mine?! " I quickly shush her and reply " Yeah, they could literally bite me in half, but that isn't the worst poptop out there - " They get even paler " the worst is the MOTHER poptop, as those things breed faster than rabbits, and they grow quick, the mother poptop has over 5 times the strength of the regular adult poptop, 2X the speed, nearly 2X the size, a special type of liquid it can shoot from its mouth that is acidic, and a type of roar that weakens non organic materials and can cause some brain damage, on top of that, the mother can constantly 'send out' young poptops even while fighting, and as soon as they're out of the mother, they can fight to! I had one nearly bite my damn leg off! I was lucky I found a new weapon in that mine, other wise, I would've been deader than those Avikans down there, and if those damn things got to the surface, there is no way in hell nothing short of YOU, your sister or a whole army could stop one of those damn things! Sure, I stopped it somewhat easily, that's because of the weapons and tools I have, if I didn't have them, I would've just been dead before I could've even reached it. So you want to know what my true job description is? I'm the Monster hunter, sentient or not, if it is corrupt or is a threat to innocents, no matter HOW direct or indirect it is. It. Will. Die. I won't go into details anymore for now, as to be honest, you, and your guards, look like they could use some rest. As for me? I still have stuff I need to do. Please, have a nice day. " When I first began, they kept getting paler, and winced when I told them about my leg, they paled even further when I told them that nothing short of them, me, or a whole army could stop just one creature. They talked it over and before they left they asked one more thing. " Kalali, since you appear to know so much about these creatures, is it possible there are more of these 'mother poptops' around our country? " I think about it, while starbound logic may apply in many respects in terms of crafting, I'm not sure it will in terms of creatures, so I tell them. " Well, I'm pretty sure there are more dens, I just went down that one and got lucky or unlucky, to have found one, we need to cover all of this country and see what we can find, as honestly, poptop's are a huge threat, however, I will tell you this, while normal male and female adult poptops can have children, there can't be as many, they take months before they can fight, they take half as long to grow compared to mother poptop children, and they can't see for the first month of being born, where as, with the mother poptop, it can send out children pretty quickly, it doesn't even need a male to fertilize it, the children are immediately able to fight, they take 2-3X as long to grow to be adults, and can see as soon as they're born. All in all, if a mother poptop can get a good foothold in a cave, it takes a LOT to deal with it. " Scheisse, I am glad that they haven't sensed my magic yet, that would be BAD if they did. Maybe I don't have it other than Latin and Dovahzul? Who knows? Oh, and unless I WANT to carve up the body or use it for something, then the message that appeared for the manticore, won't appear. " Well thank you Kalali for the information, and for dealing with such a threat, I would send a squad of guards to go and verify your claim, have a good night, but remember, I am watching you. " Thank god that exchange wasn't deadly, that would've been bad. Perhaps now I should make my token? Maybe? Who knows? I sure want to, but not until I get at least tier 3-4 gear, THEN perhaps I could. Until then I must be careful, I don't want to be summoned by a evil displaced and end up deader than a stone. I notice it is actually dark, as I was in that mine for a long time, so I decide to eat, then head off to bed, as yes, I made a better bed, woven fabric and timber bed, I don't have any tungsten yet, so I can't make any Avali things yet. Anyways, G'night. Lets see what waits us tomorrow.... To be continued.