> Dragon Helm
>  by Calico64
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Land of Corruption
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Lo here be a young wandering soul in search of mystery and intrigue! Over yonder lies thy destined advent of the unknown, the dark and reserved as well as the beautiful, natural benevolence of the winding trails thou shalt stalk. Enter, brave soul, and behold, the wide open plane of Dragon Helm! Now with a new expansion, Dragon Helm: Fall of Empires! Order the Warrior Set Collector’s Edition today, and get a Dragon Helm replica for only 99.99 Bits!” 

The commercial still rang in Diamond Sword’s head as he was trying to get use to the controls. In the vast world of the Dragon Helm Fantasy MMORPG, the white unicorn, who was a Royal Guard in real life, played a Knight of the Crown class. Just like in real life, he wore armor, and carried a very large sword. However, in the game, his sword was known as an Ogre Slayer. It was six feet tall and twelve inches wide. 

Dragon Helm was set in the world of Starling, a large and treacherous realm made of pixels and high-end graphics by several different game developers. The game had already been out for two years, thus the first expansion was released, bringing about a whole new generation of crowds. Grem found it at the store, and decided maybe it was time she tried her hand at this end of the nerd community for a while. She brought home the game and showed it to Diamond Sword, and it didn’t take much convincing to get him to play. He loved fantasy novels, and while his gaming history was not extensive, he figured he would give it a try.

As soon as he hit the first character creation screen, he was put in the atmosphere of Ogres and Obelisks. The thoughts of his favorite fantasy writers, Red Quill, Embellish, and Lance Scroll started to flood back to him. Selecting his class was a long, and dreadfully hard process. The options of being an armored warrior or a wand-wielding castor was almost unfair, as he loved both. 

In the end, the knight seemed like the best to start off with. Already, he was given a quick backstory that he didn’t pay attention to. He clicked through it and got to the starting point of the whole game. Since he was a knight, he started in a great kingdom called Alistair. 

However, to his dismay, he started with a rusted short sword and leather armor. Evidently, the class started out closer to the lines of a squire. There were a few moments of learning how to use his abilities, his weapon, and how to set the controls the way he liked to use them. He killed wild boars for a peasants’ feast, he killed a giant bear that threatened the people, and he helped an old man by finding books from various libraries in the kingdom. 

Before he knew it, hours had past by, and he was already up to level nine. That was when he decided to leave the kingdom, and start off on his journey to see more of what Starling had to offer. The outlying forest was known as Silverleaf Woods, and it did not take him long to find the local wildlife in the form of very sickly, plague-ridden vulpines. 

Now clad in light chainmail armor, and wielding a shining, low-level Ogreslayer. Diamond Sword’s eyes widened as he caught sight of these foxes. They were orange furred, black pawed, and also stricken with some of the worst green wounds he had ever seen all over their bodies. He was in good health, and from what he could tell, they were not a serious threat to him. However, with very little in the ways of gaining health, he knew that he shouldn’t pick needless fights. Still, there were many of them spread throughout the forest around him, and he knew he had to make his way through to continue on his path. 

As he looked at this scene, the white, armored unicorn couldn’t help but think of Red Quill’s new book, Plagueland. Even though he was a very recent author, Diamond loved his work. This dark, gray wood was a perfect setting that set off his fantasy fandom. 

He stayed in his fantasy fandom for a little too long, though. From the side, he had a mutated fox charge in. His fangs snarled as his black, lifeless eyes gazed at his new prey. He bit onto the chains of Diamond’s armored sleeve. Without hesitation, the knighted unicorn swung straight down with his giant sword, slicing deep into the tainted vulpine. Before the beast could even come at him again, the knight stopped him in his tracks with yet another strike that thudded against his snout. With a very ineffective attack, the fox merely grazed Diamond’s knee. As he did, Diamond brought the huge blade down, stabbing into the fox with a killing blow. The fox disappeared, leaving only plagued fur, and a canine tooth. Diamond collected the items and put them in his pack. He had no idea why the shops in the cities bought these items, but he would make his fortune bit by bit.

Once again, however, there came another fox! Evidently, he was in a highly populated area for these canine creatures. He was struck once again! This time on the shoulder as the fox snapped his maw, inflicting damage on Diamond. There was yet another battle met in that forest. The sun was going down, giving an ominous feel to his area. While the damage from the first fox was nothing to write home about, taking on multiple enemies could always prove troublesome in his predicament. Fresh from his hometown, and in the lower levels without a healer only spelled trouble. 

As he parried the stricken creature, he felt yet another pair of fangs clasp on his flank! There was a second! Three attackers in a row, and two at the same time. Now he was beginning to fear for his life. He struck the infected fox at his front, knowing if he could kill him first, he would have a chance to run. 

With a fourth fatal blow onto the fox, he laid it down low for good. However, he could feel his life force getting dangerously low. He turned to where he could not see as many enemies and prepared to dash.

He was taken by surprise. This time the creature looked like a fox but was much larger. Its roar was deep, loud and fear-ridden in its wake. The green pestilence covered its body to the point that it was almost unrecognizable as a fox, and its face was twisted. Its left eye was a black void and its right claw was long and gnarled with black corruption.

At this moment, Diamond knew he was finished! That was until the demon infected dire fox cried out in enormous pain! From his underbelly came a slender straight blade that impaled him from the back. Diamond looked around the giant fox to see a black suited warrior. Upon the warrior's head was a plate helm that covered the whole head. The warrior carried two of the same black short swords. With two more strikes, the dire fox turned his attention to the black knight who attacked it.

This gave Diamond the chance to drink of his health potion, returning some of his vitality to him. Though he hoped to save his portion for later, as he only possessed one. He figured that now was a good a time as any to prevent death. It allowed him to spin around, both of his hands on his sword’s hand as he struck the fox behind him with a terrific blow. The fox bounced against the dirt, slain. 

Diamond turned back toward the black armored fighter in their battle with the beast. They were evenly matched, though the beast was severely wounded by the initial blow. His attacks were sluggish as his gnarled claw lifted toward the black knight. It did not strike, however. Diamond struck the finishing blow at the fox’s back, his ogreslayer going straight through its back and causing it to burst into black smoke as it disappeared. 

The battle was done, and the foxes were vanquished. The two armored ponies stood on the dark forest’s dirt ground as their field of victory. The two gazed toward one another, and Diamond smiled at the dark helmed warrior. It took him a moment to realize that there were two hulking breasts underneath the dark gray chainmail shirt. On the back of the mysterious knight, there were two gray batwings. Diamond chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” Grem said as she removed her cylindrical helm with two oval eye holes in the front. It was a dark steel and looked a little over her level. 

“Well, first of all, thanks for the save. I really thought I was done for.” He looked at the other foxes that skulked about in the brownish gray neck of the woods. “What is that stuff all over their bodies?”

“Ummmm, I think it’s some kind of a quest about tainted crevices in Starling. I honestly don’t remember where to get the quest from. Are you ready to head to Moldrig? You should be the right level.” Grem asked, starting to walk that way as he followed along. 

“I’m the right level, but my items are subpar right his moment. I did the beginner’s armor quest but knights apparently don’t get very good stuff from it. I think we got a bum deal on it. Speaking of which, where did you get that platemail helmet?”

“There was a great cave between here and my starting location. Let's get you some gear before we head to Moldrig. That place is pretty rough if you don't have the stats.”

“This game is a little addicting isn't it? I feel like I've only been playing cor for an hour but it's been  loser to three.” He said as they walked side by side. He took the time to admire the contrast between them. 

“Yeah, if you're not careful with it, it can be pretty dangerous. Ponies have gone days without eating. Still, it's okay to indulge some in the beginning.” She put her hand on his abs to stop him then turned around toward him. Their lips met in a kiss as she smiled. “And I plan to indulge a bit.” Grem giggled and took his hand as they kept walking. They formed a party with just the two of them as they ventured through the forest.

They were met with different corrupted creatures. With the two fighting together, they were able to kill them with little trouble. It only took them a few minutes to reach the cave she spoke of. It was a large opening at the base of a canyon. The rocks became more and more common as they approached the distant mountains in the east. At the opening, they saw a very large ursa standing on his front and back paws.

“Bears?” Diamond asked as they stood in the distance. Grem hummed confirmation as she donned her plate helm over her head. “You said you could fight them alone, right?”

“Yes, but I had to be careful. They have a tendency to gang up on you, and even two of them can present a problem.” Grem unsheathed both of her swords. “You ready?”

Putting his hand over his shoulder to his back, he unsheathed his gigantic sword from its sheath, pulling it out with ease. “Yup.” 

“Alright, wait here. I’ll be right back.” Grem said as he turned toward the bear. It was a good thirty yards from them. It could see them coming if they tried to charge it with a frontal assault. 

“Did you need to use the bath--” He turned back to her to see that she was no longer there. He looked around for her and thought for a moment that perhaps she had been disconnected. “Grem?”

He finally spotted her, and she was crouching down and leaning forward. She tiptoed toward the bear, taking more of a long angle as she came in more from the bear’s starboard side. Her body looked rather translucent. If he hadn’t known she was near, he would never have found her. She was ever so silent and careful in her methods of stealth. He was about to say something, but as she came well within the normal attack range of the monstrous bear, he did not attack. He didn’t see her. Diamond blinked a few times as he witnessed this. It was especially puzzled as he saw both of her swords slicing into his back, drawing a roar from him and getting his attention. 

The ursa swiped his claw at the bat pony knight, but she ran around him and began to hightail it over back toward Diamond’s position. She led the bear straight into him, and as she was clear, he struck! He landed a good blow onto the side of the bear’s shoulder. Diamond caught a bit of the bear’s snarling maw biting onto the side of his hip, but his armor took the brunt of the attack. The white unicorn twirl the enormous sword in his hand, holding it upside down as he jabbed it down into the bear’s back. The ursa hit the ground hard as he struck the killing blow, and disappeared from sight. The feeling of teaming up with Grem was quite invigorating. He certainly saw the draw to this sort of game. It gave him a sense of accomplishment as well as a break from the routines of everyday life. Yes, such a thing could be very dangerous if not handled well.

“How did you do that?” He asked as he gazed off into the deep mouth of the cave. The initial hallway looked rather empty, but it still did not feel welcoming. “The way you approached him looked strange. You seemed as if you achieved some sort of ghost form.”

“You’re not too far off. Black Knights are something of a hybrid between knights and rogues in this game. They are well off in both armor and damage. In fact there are talks of them being too overpowered. So I may be seeing a lot of changes to my stats as the game goes on. But I’m happy with them right now, so I’ll see how it goes. Come on.” Grem said as she took his arm in hers and the two of them walked into the cave’s opening.

“Looks like you made the right choice in class.” He said to her as they began to walk the long, dark tunnel. Before he could say anything, though, there came some light from Grem. She pulled a lantern out of her inventory and lit the way deeper into the crevice in the hill.

“Don’t sell yourself short, you have way more armor stats than I do. Not to mention there’s a lot of really good white knight quests in later levels.” She began to whisper. 

“You seem to know a lot about this game.” He started to turn a skeptical eye toward her. “Seems like you may have wanted this game more than I did. I thought first person shooters were your thing.” 

“Uh, no. My thing is your thing.” Grem said and started to giggle a little bit. Before he could question what she said, her hand went down to the crotch of his leather pants. “Before we get too much complicated armor.” She grinned and pulled the helmet from her head, dropping it onto the ground as she pushed him against the cave wall. 

“Grem, this is a strange thing to do in--oohh…” His cock popped straight out of his pants as she pulled his pants down far enough. She took the middle ring in her hand and began to stroke him. She grinned as she gave his cock head one good lick.

“You were saying?” Grem said as she started licking the knight’s hardened penis with the flat of her tongue. Grem admitted on a regular basis that she was a little bit of a size queen. However, she struck gold when it came to Diamond Sword. Not only was he handsome, his fur white as milk, and his hair luscious and smooth, but his cock was porno-class in both length and thickness. She struggled to get midway with her mouth when he reached his full hardness. 

Grem slobbered all over his shaft, her hand starting to seriously pump up and down it to keep him at full mass. She started licking the side of it, sucking along the edge, even going down to his balls and licking them individually. It didn’t take long for Diamond to get into it. His experience in sex was starting to reach the norm for his age. In fact, much to Grem’s delight, he was starting to take chances and surprise her in various different ways. 

Such as now, as she popped his cock from her mouth, he grabbed her shoulders with both hands and pushed her onto her back. Her chainmail shirt gave a small slinking noise. She was about to say something, but as she opened her mouth, his cock went straight in. She made an “ulp” sound as his massive shlong pushed deep into her oral orifice. His knees pressed her shoulders down and his hands held onto the top of her head as his cock went to work and his hips pushed forward. Soon, his mid ring at the center of his shaft was in her mouth. The head of his dick was pressing down on her gullet. 

She hummed in delight of him taking control of her. Grem’s hormones were going haywire as she tasted his precum on her tongue. After a long while of caressing his penis with her tongue, Diamond gave her a moment as he slid his cock out. She grinned up toward him as a tiny bit of cum dripped from the side of her maw. 

“But good sir knight, we are of two different, warring factions. We should not indulge in such feelings for one another!” Grem said in her meek, maiden voice, despite being clad in armor. This brought a grin to his face. It didn’t take him long to get her on her hands and knees and remove her trousers to reveal a very pink pussy underneath her round butt cheeks. 

Having a large cock was one thing, but Grem had to admit that the more experienced he became, the better he was at everything in the bedroom. He knew how fast to slide it into her to make it last while also giving her that wonderful recoil effect that made her blush with sudden pleasure. He was getting much better at pacing himself, knowing when to take her by surprise. One minute he would be sliding in and out of her at a leisurely pace, the next minute he would start pounding her cunny like a piston shaft. 

He fucked her like she liked it and he had just the right size tool to do it. With every pump, she started to cringe with intense lust. His cock made long strokes in her sheath. He was merciless. The more she loved it, the harder he mashed his balls against her labia. Her voice echoed through the cave tunnel. He grunted as the tip of his cock prodded her cervix. However, he didn’t pay enough attention and didn’t notice the tension building inside of him. 

He released inside of her. Gushes of sperm flooded her tunnel, causing her to break out in goosebumps. Little by little, his pumping slowed down to his original, leisurely pace. Grem gave a small giggle as she looked back at him. She reached back and gently gripped his balls as his seed dripped from her pussy lips.

“Ooohhh, Diamond, don’t ever pull it from me.” Grem moaned as he came to a stop. They stayed there on that dank cold stone ground for a moment, breathing. Against his will, he pulled his long dong out of her, making her give a slight pout. It was hard to describe what such a sensation felt like. Imagine being whole for a short period of time, then feeling a hollow void as the object of your completion is taken away. That hole in her felt abandoned, cold, yet completely satisfied. 

“Well, of all the places in Starling we could have gotten down in, a cave was not the first idea that came to mind.” Diamond said as he used a cloth to clean his flesh sword.

“It was for me.” Grem gave a sinister chuckle as she flapped her wings a little bit and started to clean herself. They got dressed quickly, collecting up their weapons and putting them back into their holsters. When they were ready, they started to explore the cave. 

The tunnel they travelled had three main outlets, two could be seen one after the other, while the third was the same path they walked. Diamond stood in front of the two openings that led down two extra paths. Grem held up her lantern and tilted her head a little bit. 

“Do you remember which part of the cave you ventured into?” Diamond asked her and she kept gazing down both very dark tunnels, then looked down the third path. 

“I honestly don’t remember these two paths.” She said as she scratched the back of her head and chuckled. Grem gave him an apologetic look as he eyed her, shaking his head. “Still, it shouldn’t matter too much, there isn’t much here except for ursas. If we keep double teaming them, we’ll find you some awesome armor that should be about your level. Let’s go this--”

She pointed down the right tunnel, but then the left tunnel lit up with a sickening green light that flashed like a strobe and a crash that sounded very similar to a nearby thunderstrike. Both of their eyes widened as they saw the light far down the larger tunnel. Neither of them hesitated to enter the tunnel and follow it as they heard yet another clattering explosion. Both of them winced at the sound and began to walk the tunnel, the clash of metal growing louder as they approached. 

As they entered a widespread opening to a larger room in the cave, they saw an armored pegasus taking on a larger bear than the one they had encountered. He was clad in a dark steel chest plate. His sword was broad, but not especially long. The bear had been struck against the wall hard enough to leave a blood splatter against the stone. It was now recovering from that hit as the dark armored knight held up his sword once again. The two of them faced one another down in that dark cave. Both of them wounded and very fatigued from such a raging battle inside that dank cave. 

The knight’s shoulders heaved up and down as he gazed at the beast, his breath going hard. The stallion grunted. The bear scratched his claws against the rock bottom, ready to charge at a moment’s notice. However, that was when the knight’s eyes began to glow a sickening green. He wielded his broadsword toward the huge bear, who began to charge the few feet toward the warrior. 

Before the bear could take the last few steps in his charge, the knight unleashed a huge bolt of green energy from his hand. The Death Bolt struck the bear square in the chest. The life left the bear’s eyes as it fell and slid straight to the knight’s armored hooves. 

The knight looked down upon the fallen beast and watched as it disappeared into the ground, leaving behind a platemail helmet and a bear fur pelt. 

“Ummm, excuse me?” Grem said, drawing the mysterious knight’s attention. “We were actually looking for armor drops. How much did you want for the helmet?” She asked this and the knight kept staring at the two of them in the cave opening. At first, it looked like he may come after them. This was a PVP server and other players could attack at any moment. However, he looked from her, back to the helm, and then tossed it to her. 

Grem caught the helm and her eyes went wide. No one in their right mind would just give away a piece of armor like this for free. At this level, such a piece of metal was worth quite a bit. At first, she was about to ask what the catch was of the whole thing, but that’s when the dark knight lifted his helmet off of his body.

The smiling red pegasus waved at the two of them, walking toward the cave opening. 

“Hey Grem.” Fable said as he stepped to them. “I see you got in on the game pretty fast.”

“Fable!” Grem passed Diamond the helm and her armor clanked with him as she embraced him. They hugged for a moment and she turned to Diamond Sword. “Diamond! You remember Fable right?”

“Yeah, the ice cream clerk guy.” Diamond said and the two stallions shook hands. This made Fable laugh a little.

“Sure, if we need to wear labels. How are you liking Dragon Helm so far?” Fable asked as he pulled his water skin from his side and took a drink. 

“It’s a lot of fun. It reminds me a lot of Red Quill’s book that came out recently. I’m a big fantasy reader and this MMO really brings that kind of world to life.”

“Oh yeah, Red Quill, I still haven’t read any of his stories yet, but yeah, I love fantasy novels. This game is pretty badass in those regards. So I guess you guys are doing the quest in this cave?”

“Uh, not really, we were just getting Diamond Sword some armor and weapons of his own level before we moved on.” Grem said as she watched Diamond equip his new helmet. It was stainless steel plate with a visor that only showed off the eyes and part of the upper muzzle. It went very well with the whole persona of the ideal knight. “So wait, Fable, are you seriously a Death Knight?”

“Uh, yeah? Why wouldn’t I be? I was never a huge fan of being a stealth class, though I do love the mechanics of the Black Knight. You know, if we had a paladin, we’d have a full set of the knight classes.” Fable took notice and then searched through his pack for the scrolls he could find. “Now, let me get you that quest here. I can share it with you and then you can help me finish it, if you feel so inclined.”

“Of course! What’s on the quest?” Grem said, and they all three started to walk through the large, wide space of the cave. It wasn’t until just then that she started to notice how quiet that place had been. The hollow echoes they made while they talked didn’t alert any of the ursas in the cave, and that seemed somewhat strange.

“Five ursas, two ursa beasts, one of which I just killed, and an ursa minor.” He grinned at the two of them and their eyes widened.

“Did you just say an ursa minor?” Diamond asked and the red pegasus with the black mane nodded with a sly grin. 

“I did, indeed. Don’t worry about it, with the three of us grouping together, this will be a piece of cake!” Fable said and brought them to a wall on the far side of the cave. He put his hand on a bulb-shaped rock near the top of the wall and pulled it downward. It gave way a little bit and the wall in front of them began to slide to the side. It revealed a secret entrance where many ursas dwelled. They were both kinds, and some of them were too close together to solo fight. There was very little light, and the growling in the distance of the cave began to unnerve Grem and Diamond. Fable placed his helm back onto his head and slid his sword from its sheath. 

“Define ‘piece of cake’, Fable. This seems like a bit much.” Grem said, even though she put her helmet on her head as well and pulled out both of her swords.

To be fair, Fable wasn’t wrong. The three of them attacked the bear cave head on. The closer they got to the other side of the passage’s far wall, the more they started to see the corruption they had seen earlier with the foxes. The bears they fought had been infected with the black mold growing over their bodies. The three of them sliced through bear after bear, driving them down! It wasn’t long before they started to clear the cave. 

Over time, even Grem started to find really good armor that she didn’t have before. Before they knew it, all three of them were fully clad in platemail armor. They looked the part of knights, and all three of them couldn’t help but admire their new duds. 

However, that’s when they noticed that they made it to the far wall of the cave. With all of the bears they chopped down, they forgot to keep track of their progress. From the looks of things, the corruption was far worse on this side of the cave. The black tendrils of decay ravaged the cave, giving evidence of a horrific hex upon the land itself. 

“What happened to this place?” Grem asked as they entered the smaller passage. The tunnel was so cold, and the air was ever so unsettling. All of them looked down the tunnel. Grem went first and held forth the lantern. However, the dull glow of the light did not reach very far. She could see maybe an inch in front of her face. The light brought only darkness as they walked that gloomy path. 

The clank of their new armor echoed through the hallway. Despite their best efforts, it was louder than they were comfortable with. Finally, they made it through, and came to a very large cave opening. The light from the outside showed very little. There must have been a few little peepholes in the outside stone, because they could see a little bit better now. 

What they saw gave them all pause. While there was some light in the cave, it was extremely dim and that gave the beast in the middle of the room a deathly aura that none of them liked. The Ursa minor was as large as a house! It was only a few feet from the cave ceiling while it was on all fours. Its fur was glowing blue, but that was overtaken by the cracked skin with the black corruption showing through its flesh. Its eyes glowed, the one under corrupted flesh glowed red while the other was yellow. The side of its lip was missing with its teeth snarled into view. 

It was massive, and all three warriors stood before it with their eyes wide open. 

“Alright, Fable…” Grem said, drawing his attention as he turned his armored head toward her. “Now you have my attention.”
> Death and Nature
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grem held up one finger in front of her face and faded away before their eyes. The dark chasm was perfect for her. With her black armor and abilities, the cave made her practically imperceptible. The two other knights, Fable and Diamond Sword watched as she began to make her way over toward the massive bear-like creature known as the Ursa Minor. It had a dull glow about it that was marred by corruption. It festered with a black symbiotic growth over a great deal of its body. The already ferocious beast was given a disgusting visage and obvious mental illness that drove it to madness. Both of the stallions stood at the ready as she neared the beast. Their swords wielded in a fighting stance, ready to catch the beast as he charged. 

However, that’s when she began to approach even closer. Both Fable and Diamond saw at the same time, the beast’s eyes turned straight to Grem. Apparently, the bear had true-sight, an ability to see anything not completely invisible, and have perfect sight in the dark. 

“Grem!” Diamond shouted. “Look out!” 

As soon as Grem looked upward, the giant bear was already on her. His paw was as large as her whole body, and it came at her full force. She was knocked back hard, and skidded along the rock floor. 

“Let’s go!” Fable burst into motion, as did Diamond. The two of them rushed over toward the Ursa. Their armor clanked in motion as they both raised their weapons, ready to fight. Before the bear could strike at the fallen Grem once again, Fable’s sword shined the same sickening green color as before. He fired off yet another Death Bolt into the Ursa’s flank in order to get its attention. The beast turned its attention over toward the two knights who were already well within range.

Both the knight and death knight struck at the same time, cleaving their blades into its broken flesh. The bear roared with great pain as it turned to meet them both in combat. Its attacks were especially difficult to avoid, and they were powerful! Fable was struck. He held his sword in front of him as the bear reposted, but he still slid straight back in a terrible effort to keep his balance. 

Diamond’s gigantic blade struck deep into the bear’s corrupted flesh. His sword sinking deep, but it was not enough. The bear jabbed into Diamond’s armor, causing him to stumbled back, cringing in pain as the ursa’s attacks were no joke. Even as Grem reentered the fray, both injured and shaken up, the outcome looked uncertain. 

As the bear turned to Diamond Sword, his jaws beard down at his body. The unicorn knight swung his large blade and sliced the monstrous maw. The giant bear was hurt, but undeterred. Even as Fable used up what remained of his mana, draining life from the bear to increase his own health, it was no use. They were too low level. Fable had heard rumors that a full group with a healer was recommended for this monstrosity, but he had no idea how overwhelmed they would become. 

They were battered something fierce. Diamond, acting as their tank, could not hold on much longer. Fable was out of energy and his strikes just were not doing enough damage. Grem stabbed and sliced with both swords, but her life force was running especially low. The bear seemed to have vitality to no end, but truth was they were nearing his death, they just did not have enough to finish him. 

Fable aggravated the bear once again. He had enough energy for a first level death bolt which did very little, but caught his attention all the same. He did his best to defend against the onslaught of the monstrous entity, but anyone would tell you that losing vitality of this rate was to forfeit one’s life. 

“You guys go! Run! I’ll cover your escape!” Fable shouted toward them as his sword swiped and sliced into the blood matted fur and swollen black skin. 

“But the bears have all respawned by now! It’s no use.” Grem said as she looked back down the long corridor. She turned her gaze over to Diamond Sword, who was equally as puzzled, tired, and enormously injured from the hopeless battle. They had done tremendous amounts of damage to the beast, but all was lost. Fable was down to his last bit of energy and with a few more bats of the giant paw, he was going to die.

“NO!” Diamond shouted as the killing blow was about to be struck. However, the bear’s exterior suddenly turned a bright shade of blue.

“Khelek!” A voice shouted from directly behind Grem, who was given a startle as she turned around. There was an azure colored unicorn at her flank. His horn glowed a bright ice blue as his hands did. He lifted them and prepared yet another spell. He wore dark navy blue robes as was customary for sorcerers of his type. He cringed as he unleashed yet another beam of icing death! 

This was enough to send the bear into a retreat. Slowly, the battle ravaged ursa minor began a slow run away from them. All of them teamed back up against the beast. They jabbed and slashed with abandon as their tired bodies moved toward the glowing, corrupted bear. 

Finally, the giant mammal was brought down. The quest had been completed, and all of them had ascended. That was, up until all of them hit the ground. All three of them pulled their armored helms from their heads as their heads were drenched in sweat. They gasped for breath, panted. Fable’s head was bleeding, and his armor was in desperate need of mending. His two new companions were in similar states. They tried their best to speak to their savior in the blue robe, but they were entirely too caught up in catching their breaths. 

“Winter!” Grem finally said. “I can’t believe you found us! That was awesome! I thought we were done for.” 

The two stallions nodded and looked up to the unicorn as he stood with his long staff at his side. He only smiled at them and held up his hand. 

“Oh, it was nothing. Fable private messaged me and said you could use some help. Took me a minute though. The teleport point is a while away, I had to hoof it over here pretty damn fast. Holy crap, your health is about to wither away.” 

“Uh, yeah, we just defeated an Ursa Minor. I didn’t think we would even get this close to it with just the three of us. Still, it was worth a shot.” Fable said as he got to his hooves. 

“Well, I mean, I’m a sorcerer, so healing isn’t exactly my forte. However, I do have a level one spell.” He said, and took a minute to pull out his spellbook. “I didn’t think I’d need it so damn fast though.”

“Are you kidding? I’d kill to have a healing spell.” Fable said, being the one who can suck the life out of enemies. Both he and Winter had a little chuckle. “So hey, how long are you on? We’re probably gonna be riding this corruption quest for a while.” 

“I’ll be on for a while.” Winter said, waving his staff forward and casting a glow over Fable as a little bit of his health was restored. The three of them sat in a circle and ate some of their rations as Winter healed them little by little. 

“So, you’re saying there’s more to this corruption quest than just a bunch of evil animals?” Grem asked as they started to feel much better. Their wounds healed and their energy coming back as they rested.

“Oh, yeah, the corrupted animals is just the beginning. Apparently, there’s a castle we need to go to. It was an abandoned castle, but now a horrific pony resides there. He has something called the Life Rune and he is casting spells on it to destroy it. And stuff happened and the land got dismal and whatnot.” Fable said, seeing his life bar was now at full. 

“Sounds like you just kinda gave up talking about it, Fable.” Winter said as he sat down with them to re-up his mana. 

“Yeah, I figured you guys got the overall drift of it.” Fable smirked. 

“Alright, well that’s cool. Sounds like a grand adventure. However, don’t we need to fight through the whole line of bears to get out of here now?” Grem said as she got to her hooves and stretched a little bit. 

“Nope! I can gate us all back to my home point. Now that I’m part of your group, just stand close to me. My mana is getting to the point where I can do it.” Winter said as he looked at his spellbook.

“Wow, being a sorcerer sounds awesome. Maybe I should be a spellcaster next.” Diamond sword got up as well. “I need to buy some more rations anyway.” 

“I’m heading straight for the pub for a cupper.” Fable laughed a little. 

“You drink?” Diamond asked. Fable shook his head.

“No, but my character does. It stills the demons he possesses, which fuel his death magic and his sword in killing those who have done the world wrong! He is angry at the world for making him a warrior with the spellpower of necromancy. Now he skulks the land of Starling in search of those evil entities which seek to do the same to the innocent fillies and colts.” Fable’s chest was puffed up as he looked over at the three of them as they stared. “What? My character has a backstory, I’m a writer, remember?”

“Yeah yeah, either way. Come on.” Winter gathered them all around himself as he held up his hand and his staff. Little by little they began to glow bright and he closed his eyes as he started to make all of them shine with a brilliant blue light. 

-----------

They made it back to the nearest town. All of them finished the quest with the old librarian, who started that quest. As Fable said, he gave them the next level of the quest, this one was in a much farther place. They would need to travel over the hills of Under Brush and cross the Seven Rivers of Drikkin in order to find a cove near the shores of Ashendale. The journey would be long, but they were willing to wait and enjoy themselves a bit in the town. 

Winter stayed in the library and cultivated his magical skills through the new levels he had attained in his time outside of the town. Fable did indeed stay at the tavern and began to drink flagons of strange beverages that started to affect his senses. Diamond and Grem went to the blacksmith and had their armor repaired. After their platemail was mended, they walked out of the small building and began to walk toward the inn at the end of the road. 

“We should probably log soon.” Diamond noticed how long they'd been playing Dragon Helm and it was getting a little out of hand. Then he looked over to the side, away from her as his face began to calculate. 

“You really don’t want to.” 

“No, I really don’t.” He admitted, making Grem laugh. “Does that make me addicted to this game?”

“No, that’s pretty normal. Once you start taking days off from work or neglecting your girlfriend for this game, then I’ll kick your ass and tell you that you’re addicted. Until then, it’s a brand new game and you’re enjoying it. That’s good. We can keep playing for a little while longer if you want.” Grem said as they entered the inn. There were actually a few players in the lobby of the inn, but the same nonplayer character stood behind the counter, looking at the two of them as they approached. 

“Evening! Can I interest you in a bottle of ale?” The NPC said as Grem opened up his sales menu. She got a few items for the next journey they went on and made this city her new starting point so that she could port back to this location if she needed to.

“Alright, come on. I think there’s another quest in this inn.” Grem said, motioning and leading Diamond down the hallway, into the rooms. 

Winter and Fable met in the tavern, both of them had been drinking their fair share of alcohol, but neither of them cared. They were so glad they revamped their accounts for Dragon Hell, it was worth every bit. The two of them reminisced about old times in playing their other MMO’s, and remembered the frustrations and the hardships they had gone through. Then they drank until they saw that enough time had passed by. 

Using their world maps, they found that their two companions were in the Leaping Stag Inn.

“I hope they set their waypoints here, Knights and Black Knights are a long ways away from here. If they die on the journey, it’ll be one hell of a hike back.” Winter said as they crossed the inn.

“I’m pretty sure Grem knows what she’s doing in the game. I mean, she was killing us both that game night.” Fable opened the door to the room they were in, and both of them were on the bed. Winter and Fable’s eyes went very wide. 

Grem was on top of Diamond, bouncing up and down on his cock. As she did, her gigantic tits flopped up and down. Her gray fur outlining her pink nipples as they bobbed at an extensive rate. The white unicorn laid on the bed and looked over at the other two as they entered. His face scrunched a little in worry as they gazed at the two love birds. Grem, however, looked at them with her eyes half open. She smiled wide and kept riding her stallion boyfriend.

“Well, if it isn’t our noble companions.” Grem slowed down a bit, but she never stopped pushing down on the very large member as it went very deep into her soaked quim. “I could use a few more cocks, if you don’t mind.” She asked the lot of them.

Grem was devoted to Diamond Sword with both mind and body. However, she did explain to him how she had had a night of ecstasy with the two of them some months ago. The bat pony let them have every hole they could fuck. They filled her up once each and then some. Grem had explained this to him while he was ever so deep inside of her. After a little convincing, Diamond Sword told her that he was okay with them. She had kissed him deep and long, assuring him that he would not regret it.

It only took a few minutes, but she was bouncing up and down on a large prick while she held a blue cock and a red cock in both hands, licking and sucking on both of them. Grem moaned in absolute glee as Diamond started fucking her upward as she came down on his long, thick shaft. Then she licked all the way down to Fable’s dark red shaft and gazed up at him as she smirked. Her hand wanked Winter’s cock as she pointed to to her cheek. Her head turned, and she deep throated Winter’s spotted blue prick. 

“Shouldn’t we--nnnn!--be healing a corrupted world or something like that?” Fable asked as she had him deep into her muzzle. She smirked and pulled him out, jerking him off. 

“I’m sure the world can wait.” Grem remarked as she shoved his large dick back into her mouth. The gray bat pony gave a surprised yelp as Diamond Sword used his position to push her onto her back. His gigantic, dark skinned manhood slipped out of her and pointed straight up as she landed with her back on the mattress. She bounced a little bit, her tits wobbling to and fro.

Before she could even say anything, he was already setting his cock between her massive mammaries. Grem licked her lips as his cock neared her mouth. She latched onto his glans penis as he started pushing his horse cock back and forth between her breasts. He used his thumbs over her nipples to tighten his hold over them. 

Winter was the first to get behind Diamond and push his very ready, saliva wet cock into her pussy lips. The azure colored unicorn worked her cunt with his nice thick cock and held her legs wide open with both hands as she moaned against Diamond’s hot rod. His precum lubricated her bust as she gazed at him with longing eyes. Even as Winter filled her with cum, he had no question that she loved him. Even when Fable took his turn on her and she moaned against his fat cock squeezing into her. Diamond merely pushed harder and farther into her mouth as his balls pressed against the underside of her tits. 

It was the first time Diamond Sword had ever seen Grem show her true slut side to him. What struck him, however, was how polite the two stallions were. Both Fable and Winter were gentle with her at first before pushing deeper and faster into her, just how she liked it. 

When all was said and done, she stayed on her knees as the three stallions all stood around her. Their cocks were out and jerking off in front of her as she smiled.

“Who’s first?” Grem asked, gazing at all of them as they rushed to wank their cocks harder and faster. That was when Diamond started breathing harder and making more noise. She leaned toward him with her mouth open as he got closer and grabbed the back of her mane. 

He made an urgent noise of relief as his cock head burst with white, sticky jizz as it splashed her face. She sighed and moaned as she felt his hot liquid cover her muzzle and her snout. Her hand came up underneath him and began to massage his balls, soothing them as they emptied spunk on to her snout. 

“Beautiful, next?” She looked at Fable and Winter as they both seemed like they were just about ready to pop! Before she could say anything more, both young stallions shot their loads. She felt their love juice splatter across her face as she relished every moment of it. They covered her. Thick hot cum dripped off of her chin onto her huge tits. Shot after shot drenched her lips as she licked it off and put their cock heads into her mouth. Grem tasted fresh sperm and drank it as it came to her. 

“Wow, looks like you guys needed that pretty badly.” The bat pony sat there and breathed in the wonderful scent of their pure hormones as she basked in her layered facial. She felt like they got every inch of her face, even having to close her left eye as it was covered entirely. All three stallions smiled up until all three of them turned their heads to an opening door. 

There stood Voltage, the ironclad unicorn mare standing at the door. The orange furred paladin pony looked down at the cum-covered bat pony, then looked up at the three stallions with their hard dicks out. She blinked a few times, then started to grin a little bit. She carried a huge sword on her back and was dressed in the finest white platemail armor that her level could wear. 

“Are they in there Volt--Ohhhh.” Spark said as he got to the door. The mare and stallion twins took a moment to take in the situation and suddenly their lives seemed to be rather normal with this bunch. 

“Spark!” Gream gasped, the spunk on her face still beading down. “Hey! How’s it going?” 

Voltage turned her head to look at her brother. The two orange unicorns shared that same glance, and Spark shrugged and gave a nervous chuckle. It was a look that just screamed “Yes, I definitely fucked her.”

Voltage rolled her eyes. 

-----------

Their travels took them far across the land. The deeper they came through the quest, the higher their levels rose through the teens and into the twenties. Spark and Voltage became a valued addition to their party. The land’s corruption became more apparent the closer they came to the valley that would take them to the end of their voyage. 

“See? It's right here.” Voltage said as they came to the valley’s edge. The earth had been destroyed and the land looked as if it had been burned to ash. Flecks of ember glowed in small pieces of the black soil. There was a dark haze all through the sky above and over the horizon, giving their vision a brown tinge. Trees had been withered to black stumps, giving the air ashy qualities.

“Could they have picked a more depressing spot?” Spark said as they started to tread the path. “This place reminds me of death’s vacation spot.”

“I like it.” Fable said in a brooding, grim voice behind his black plate helm. They all glanced at him to see he had taken on his Death Knight persona in full swing, rolling their eyes. 
“Okay, from what I've heard, we should be just high enough level to survive in this zone. We just need to watch out for orcs and ogr--" Diamond Sword was cut short in his speaking as a giant boulder slammed nearby. It bounced and rolled past them. The shock wave knocking him, Grem and Voltage straight back on their asses. The dust kicked up around them and as it cleared, they all saw the giant figure in the distance. 

An ogre, around nine feet tall, tan and fat stood in the distance. A roar came from in front of him as orcs began their charge. They were rather large, muscular, green creatures. Fangs pointed up from their lower lips. All of them were clad in black cloth and war painted dark red in different patterns all over their faces. They charges with ferocity as their ogre began to pick up another boulder the size of its own very large head, twice as heavy. 

“Winter! Take out the ogre! All of you! Form a line!” Diamond wielded his large sword as he stepped forward and his companions did the same. Voltage and Grem stood at either side of him. 

Fable’s hands and eyes began to glow his sickening green. With his hands thrusting forward, his much larger death bolt shot forward into one of the orcs’ chest. 

The five orcs charged in and were met with the band of warriors. Electric Spark unleashed his first wizard spell, eliminating the already wounded orc as Fable met him with his sword. Grem struck the next one before his axe could reach her. With her opponent's dazed expression, she knew her disorienting attack was pulled off with flawless precision. She rolled off of his arm and spun around and jabbed one of her black bladed swords through his back, impaling him as it stuck from his chest.

Before the ogre could unleash yet another boulder into the group, Winter cast a light blue beam of energy into the distance. The ogre was taken by surprise as his whole body turned bitter cold. His joints moved slow and he recoiled at the raw pain that engulfed his body. Before he could come back for yet another boulder attack, the blast of freezing light was followed by a ray of green death. The sickening beam of necromancy shook the ogre to his core as Fable charged in. His two-handed long blade clutched in his grasp. The ogre had no chance of catching the blow. Fable’s blade struck with a great force. The red pegasus was taken by surprise, however, as the ogre came forth with a precise kick that sent him sprawling. Fable stayed on his hooves but just barely. 

As the ogre regained his bearings, he felt a sharp pain in his back. He was stabbed deep by Grem’s short bladed swords and before he could turn, there came a great burning in his chest. Spark enacted a powerful flame spell that caused the ogre to roar with great pain. Unable to retreat, and his band of orcs demolished, the ogre fell, evaporating as the group gained their experience.

The party took a small breather, gathering themselves back up before they continued through the wastelands. As they did, the ash only kicked up harder with the winds. The sun beamed down in a haze over the corrupted tar on the ground. It was so unbearably hot that they were cooking inside of their armor. Winter had the worst time of it, who thrived in the cold, but the heat weakened him a great deal. As they walked, they held their arms in front of their faces to protect their eyes. The harsh terrain only grew more perilous.
> Death Be My Boon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I've never heard of an ash storm before.” Winter said, drinking from his large water flask. They were making progress for sure. The battle had only caused them minor injuries, and they were more than ready for another conflict, though the valley seemed rather clear of enemies. The jagged rocks around them jutted in all directions. Plateaus and ridges began to come in sight, giving evidence that they were approaching something that was once a rocky terrain. While it was still rocky, the terrain was corrupted beyond recognition of what it once was. 

“Man, how long has this corruption been going on?” Diamond asked as they began to climb another incline to a slightly higher elevation. “Something like this would take years to form.” 

“Or an especially powerful spell for it to change it quickly.” Spark interjected. “Either way, it would need to have been done with great precision. Look here, the land is becoming far darker.” He said as the ground seemed to become something like black, solidified tar. It was rough, and it smelled of extreme sulfur. “We must be getting close.”

“Look!” Grem pointed ahead as they walked. There lied what looked like a mansion. Although the exterior had a great deal of wear, it didn't seem to affect the inside of it. They got out of the harsh environment of the ash land and were finally able to breath easy. Sweat gleamed on their brows as they removed their helmets and other exterior garments.

“Get this crap off of me.” Fable whispered under his breath as he pulled off his black armor. He and Grem had the worst time of it. Their heavy, black armor absorbed the sunlight. The mansion they entered was stuffy, as if no one had lived there for several years. The air was so close together that it actually made the heat a little more concentrated for a moment. The sweaty red stallion was ready to find the darkest room in the whole mansion at first, as the windows showed in that dull, gray ash that allowed the heat from the sun. 

However, that’s when all of them felt the smooth, cool air flow through to them and bring forth the most amazing feeling of luxury. The cold breeze emitted from Winter. His horn glowed and brought forth a delightful wintery aura that spread outward into the room. 

“Oh, Winter, you’re magnificent!” Grem said as she held her arms and wings open in front of him. She was clad only in cloth material now, her armor taken off of her and added to her inventory. 

“That’s a neat trick!” Voltage said as she too took off her armor and basked in the wonderful relief that the azure unicorn brought forth to them. “How long can you hold that spell?”

“It’s a low level aura, it allows you to walk on ember land so long as you’re close to me. This should make the temperature in the mansion a little more bearable once all of us have cooled off. If it gets too hot again, just let me know. Spark, do you have something similar?”

“I don’t, actually I have the opposite. I’m mostly specced for fire and lightning. So once we go to a frozen tundra, I’ll be able to help out there.” Spark smiled and winked at Winter who rolled his eyes, chuckling. 

Diamond started looking around the mansion’s front room. There were two stairwells on either side of the room, both of them leading to two different ends of the same hallway, which passed over the second floor. In the center of the hallway upstairs, there was a second staircase which led up. From the look of the outside, the house actually seemed a bit smaller than it was perceived now. Dust was thick on the surfaces, bookshelves, cabinets and tables all throughout the front room. In the center of the far wall, there was a very large fireplace. 

The whole thing looked so rustic, so stylized that the rest of the companions started looking around. 

“What is this place?” Grem asked and the rest of them shrugged.

“There's no enemies or anything here. So I guess we should just scavenge what we can and get back on the road. Travel in groups so we don't get ambushed.” Diamond said, and everyone nodded.

Fable went with Winter, thinking he would be the perfect air conditioner if he needed it. Not to mention he was a great spellcaster to his sword. Spark went with Voltage while Diamond went with Grem and they all took different parts of the house.

Grem and Diamond checked down a long corridor as they ascended the stairs. It had doors all up and down on both sides. They opened doors to empty rooms, broken, rundown furniture and cobwebs. That was until they came to something resembling a dungeon. In one of the thirty some odd doors there was a large stone room.

“Whoa.” Grem said as she entered.

“What the hell is this doing here?” Diamond asked no one in particular as he ambled inside along with her. They looked around at all of the chains hanging along the walls attached to the ceiling. There was very little light all around the dungeon until Diamond Sword illuminated his horn. 

As he did, he turned around to see what Grem was doing, but she was gone.

“Grem?” He turned around all the way, searching for her. “Grem!”

----------

The fully clad armored unicorn followed her brother as his staff lit the way down the dark hallway of the mansion. The light from their horns did very little to cut through the unnatural black in front of their eyes. The deeper they went through the house, the more concerned they both grew.

“I'm telling you, this is the place we were supposed to go.” Voltage whispered as she kept her eyes peeled for any movement around them. 

“Then where are the mobs? Where are the vampires? Where’s the crystal we're supposed to find?” Spark argued as he also looked around. “This place is hollow. We'll be lucky if we find some rusty weapons.”

“It's the place.” She concluded. “It's pulsing with mystery. It's perfect.” 

“Hooooly shit!” Spark gasped as he lifted his staff farther in front of them. There gleamed a bright, sparkly bit of coin, and upon further inspection, there came a chest full of gold bits. “Look at all of that.” 

Voltage's eyes bulged a little at the spectacle, but she controlled herself. Her horn glowed bright as she looked downward toward the front of their hooves. Sure enough, there was a very intricate trap laid out before them. The tile in front of them was a good yard long and took up the whole floor from them to the chest.

She took a deep breath and began to disarm it.

“You sure you got this?” Spark watched her as he stood back. She carefully lifted the bottom up to reveal the ropes that controlled the trap.

“I put some skill points into trap disarming, so I should at least be able to stave off the trap for a moment. Just need to be care--" Suddenly her finger flicked over one of the handles and the ropes all started to move. “That's a high level trap---DAAAHHH!!” The floor below her opened up as she fell through.

“Voltage!” He shouted. He was far out of reach to stop her, and the door closed before he could cast anything. He looked at the treasure, scoffed and turned back. He would go down the stairs to the lower levels. He ran as fast as he could through the darkness.

----------

Winter lit the way for the two of them. Fable kept his sword at the ready and his eyes glowed green with dark vision. With the two magic abilities combined, Fable could see perfectly. They found themselves in what looked like a luxury resort. All of the rooms were fully furnished with large beds, beautiful wall decorations and all of the modern comforts of a fantasy world. However, there was no light to speak of. Everything was still and lifeless.

Then there came a much larger room. The kind of room you would consider a rec room or even a small library. This one had the largest bed they had ever seen and a roaring fireplace on the opposite end. 

“Man, this place is awesome.” Fable said, watching all of the pictures on the walls and wonderful bookshelves as they were illuminated by the fire. “I could vacation in a place like this.”

“Yeah, me too.” After a moment, Fable and Winter looked at one another. They blinked in the awkward moment, then went back to looking around. “We should probably get going. Looks like there's nothing here.”

“Yeah, not even a cup of death.” Fable blue skyed. 

“Wait, did you just say a cup--" That's when they heard a squeal from above them and the ceiling opened up. Down came Voltage onto the bed, bouncing twice before finally settling down.

“Volt?” Both of them said as they ran to her side and saw that she was sweating, trying to catch her breath.

“Oh, hey guys.” Voltage said as she sat up in the bed. “What's up?” She was pouring sweat as if she had run a marathon. 

“What happened?” Winter asked, lighting up his hand with his blue energy and waving it over her face to cool her off. She cooed and put her gauntlet on his cheek.

“I don't know. I was disarming a trap and the floor opened up. I fell through a narrow tunnel and it was so hot! Like, sweltering hot! I gotta get this off, help me out.” She said as she started taking off her armor. The fireplace in the room did not help her situation. She stripped off her platemail and started flapping her cloth shirt in the front.

Voltage plopped down on the bed again. Winter continued to cool her to the point where her nipples began to poke through her fabric. Both of them looked at this and then looked at each other. 

“Are you feeling better?” Fable asked and she started rubbing up his chestplate to his cheek. His eyes widened as she gripped his chin.

“It was such a rush. I loved it!” Voltage fancied herself a serious gamer. The high notes she hit in gaming came from difficulty and overall victory. She won contests, conquered goals and completed games for the absolute thrill and conquest! It was intoxicating, and the fact that she was in the presence of two young studs was not helping her disposition.

She leaned over to Fable and kissed him square on the lips. Her mouth pressed tight against his and her tongue began to lick his lips. With one hand, she began to unlace his armor. With her other hand, she reached down and cupped Winter’s crotch with a firm grip. Fable couldn't help but get into the kiss. His hand gripping the back of her red and blue mane.

Winter looked down at her hand as she fondled his cock and balls. It took no time at all to get him hard as a diamond. She reached under his robe and brought out his blue spotted cock.

“Wow.” She moaned as Fable’s hand reached up her shirt and caressed her rock solid nipples of her orange body. Both stallions were naked in no time flat and Voltage stroked both of their cocks without hesitation as they sat on either side of her. “I've been wanting to test drive these for a while.” She grinned up at the two of them with her gray eyes.

With that, her muzzle engulfed Winter's enormous dick. Her mouth was ever so skillful, and her tongue lashed his cockhead with great accuracy. Winter leaned back on the bed as he enjoyed her masterful fellatio. He wanted to ask where she learned to use her mouth like that but he didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak.

Fable watched as she got onto Winter and her rump was pointed toward him. He couldn't help himself. He tugged her cloth shorts down to expose her very round ass. Below her butt was a very wet and open pussy. He took a moment to admire her cutie mark of three dark blue lightning bolts before he started to rub her pussy with two fingers. She was dripping. Her pussy tightened at the touch of his fingers and she moaned against Winter's dong.

The red pegasus felt her hips move along with his fingers. Her whimpers begged for him to rub her harder. He couldn't wait anymore. He had to spread her ass cheeks and slide his cock into her straight away. She felt him push with his thick girth and Winter felt it too as she sucked his dick harder. The azure unicorn watched as she gazed at him. Her tongue caressing his shaft, over his mid ring and down to his testicles, sucking the flimsy skin of his scrotum.

She rocked her hips against Fable Prose as he started fucking her how she liked it. Hard and fast was the name of the game. His cock reached deep and assaulted her cervix as she lavished on the rock hard penis in her mouth. She began to emit muffled high pitched squeals with each thrust as she came. She felt glorious! Voltage felt tremors all through her body as she stared lovingly at Winter.

“Fable!” She said as she pulled the dick out of her mouth and looked back at him. He slowed down to a leisurely pace as he started to pant.

“Yeah?” 

Voltage pulled Winter down below her, moving to where he was perfectly set below her. As she positioned Winter, Fable’s dick rubbed along the side of his and his eyes widened a bit. The two stallions shared a look before Fable pulled out of Voltage as if nothing happened. 

“Mmmm.” Voltage hummed, content. “Would you be a dear, and get my ass for me?” She batted her eyelashes back at the pegasus, who watched as she slid Winter’s cock inside of her from on top of him and began to fuck him. Fable watched as Winter’s cock disappeared and reappeared from inside of the orange unicorn mare. He was hypnotized by the spectacle and couldn’t seem to turn away.

After a moment, though, he snapped out of his trance and mounted Voltage from behind. His cock was thoroughly wet from fucking her eager pussy. Her moan from the anal penetration was enormous! Double penetration was not at all among her expertise, but she had wanted to try it for some time. 

None of that mattered at that moment, though. The two lively stallions fucked her in synch with one another as if this were second nature to them. Winter met Voltage in a deep, tongue-filled kiss as the two of them fucked her with their very long dicks. She had never felt so full in her life. It was a shame Spark couldn’t be here to partake, but the gleaming idea that these two wouldn’t mind him joining started to occur to her. Again, it was hard to think about these things when two manly hard ons were assaulting her at a mile a minute. She tore through yet another orgasm, every sensation tingling through her entire body.

Fable’s hands gripping her ass, and Winter’s lips against hers, her tits against his chest, and Fable’s sweat dripping onto her back as he fucked her ass mercilessly; all of it created ripples through her body as she came for the second time. That orgasm triggered yet another one. At this point she was starting to see sound waves. 

Just as she was reaching a point of zen, there came a huge burst of warm, sticky semen in her pussy. Winter was huffing and puffing twice as fast as he was pushing into her as he squirted sweet sperm into her quim. Just as he was on his seventh and last ejaculation, in came Fable with another huge wad of cum pumping into her ass. Her moans kept rising and falling through the process of both of their orgasms, especially since neither of them were slowing down. 

“Y-you guys!” Voltage started to say as they continued to plow both of her very sensitive holes, crashing her through yet another orgasm. “You guys are beasts!”

-------

“And you’re sure you’re okay?” Spark asked Grem as he had found her in a dungeon chamber. In his efforts to find Voltage, he had found the gray bat pony chained to the ceiling against a wall in a dark dungeon. For some reason, it was getting ridiculously hot in that place. It felt like someone was preheating an oven the farther they went down into the chambers below the very large house. Grem told him that she had no idea how she got there, nor why all of her clothes were off, but she figured it had something to do with the ridiculously hot climate. 

Spark started to look for her armor in that chamber but then she stopped him with her foot. 

“Hey, don’t worry about that right this moment. Help me get down.” Grem said, however there was no panic in her voice at all. In fact, being chained to the ceiling with her clothes gone, in the presence of such a hunky stallion seemed to be just what she always wanted. Many women hated the idea of being the damsel in distress. However, there are a great number of mares who fantasized about being rescued by a knight in shining armor. While she figured it would be Diamond Sword who came to her aid, Spark was a definite welcome alternative. 

Spark looked at her, noting that her nipples were especially pointy as she blushed. He looked up at the chains and thought about melting the metal, however, melted metal would cause more problems than it fixed. As a wizard, his physical strength was next to weakling status. In fact, Grem would probably have better luck pulling the chains out herself. 

He reached up to the chains and started to pull on them a little. They were chained pretty good, it seemed. The links were solid and thick. It would take a warrior type or something similar to even attempt such a strength roll. However, that’s when Grem grabbed both of his hands and pulled him into a kiss. Her blush only grew as he kissed her back. Not bothering to ask what was going on, he knew very well what was going on. In fact, he found it pretty humorous that their positions seemed to be switched from when last they had a night such as this. She hummed her approval and smiled at him as they broke the kiss. 

“It would be so unruly and inappropriate for you to take advantage of me in such a bound state.” Grem’s face looked away, and her tits bounced as she shifted balance onto one of her feet. “How dare you be so lewd with a woman in trouble!” Grem opened one eye toward him as the smile clearly never left her face. 

“You mean like this?” Spark said as he put two of his hands on one of her breasts and began to lick all over the nipple. The captive bat pony started to breath a little faster as his tongue caressed her areola and stimulated her mammary gland. “Or like this?” He started to suck on her nipple, rubbing his teeth very gently over it.

“Oh! How naughty! So lewd!” Grem squirmed a little bit as he switched to her other breast and began sucking on it while she hung there, helpless. She was literally dripping pussy juice down her inner thighs. She had a thing for such activities, and this was composed just the way she liked it. Her gigantic breasts felt the wonderful tongue rub against them, turning her on like a light switch! 

“What seems to be going on here?” Diamond Sword said as he leaned against the dungeon threshold, stopping them both as they looked toward the unicorn knight. 

“Oooo, my knight in shining armor.” Grem smiled at him as he approached the two of them.

Diamond Sword smiled and came to his lady pony. While Spark took one nipple, Diamond took the other. This caused her to waterfall from her naughty bits. Her thighs were soaked with juices as they travelled down her legs to the dungeon floor.

“Oh! What is a poor girl to do? All chained up and helpless! Ooohh! Woe is me!” She fake cried her words, but her hooves grinded against the floor. At this point she was doing her best to stave off an orgasm. 

That was when the jig was up. Diamond placed his hand on her leg and instantly stopped. He mouthed the words “what the fuck?” as he looked at his fingers, which were now wet with vaginal dripping. He traced his finger up to her cunt to feel that it was drowning in lubricant. 

“Grem! Dear sweet lord! You’re drenched!” His face was a mask of disbelief. He had never seen her become so self lubricated. She blushed at his flabbergasted look.

“I… may have a thing for bondage.” Her entire face was flushed now. The embarrassment was palpable and what was worse, she was going to die if she didn’t cum soon. The urge was building inside of her so much that she felt she would explode. 

The next two minutes was a bit of a blur for Grem. She remembered kisses, nibbling on her neck, squeezing her tits and slapping her rump. However, the next thing she knew, she was being fucked standing up by her dearest lover. The white unicorn was now wholly naked and pumping his gigantic cock into the bat pony. Her first orgasm came and snapped her back to reality, especially when she felt another cock slide into her, this time from behind. 

Spark pushed his gigantic dick into her asshole, stretching her ass to its limits as he started fucking her. Her cries of ecstasy echoed all through the dungeon. She was high pitched, absolutely frivolous as to her volume. She pulled out all of the stops. Grem allowed herself to go wild, cock hungry and slutty as ever. Her tongue licked all over Diamond’s muzzle and his tongue as he plowed her leaking pussy. The two of them worked her into a state of absolute nirvana with the large meaty cocks devastating her body and mind. Her tits bounced, thumping up and down against her shoulders and her abs, flopping free as if unhinged.  

Both stallions came inside of her at the same time. Semen gushed from both of her orifices as they splattered her insides full of spunk! She sputtered, havered, and wrapped her arms around her lover, kissing him wholly on the lips, her mouth pressing against his as if her very life depended on it. The moment lasted a good long while, her climax still reverberating through her entire body as cum dripped from both holes. They pulled out of her, all of them sweaty and running extremely warm. 

Grem felt a bit of exhaustion after such an ordeal. Being fucked by two hunky stallions was not a first for her, but it was by no means a small feat. As she hung there by her arms, both of them supported her weight and made it to where not too much pressure was put on her wrists, so she could at least feel slightly comfortable.

All three of them opened their eyes wide as they heard a commotion in the distance. Echoing through the corridors of that enormous house was what sounded like a clash of combat and the cries of battle.

“We gotta go.” Grem said, and flexed both of her arms, gritting her teeth as she pulled the chains down from the ceiling. Part of the stone shattered in the process as she let her arms hang down finally. Both studs looked at one another with puzzled faces. Then they shrugged, and started to get dressed.

---------

Fable, Voltage and Winter ambled through the hallways of that house, going down lower than they had entered as passages became available to lower stairwells. The heat was growing ridiculous at this point, and the darkness started to fade away. In the place of gloom came a red light. This red light covered everything it touched as they ventured closer to it. The scarlet haze distorted their senses and caused them to squint their eyes. They lost track of how long it took for them to find their way to the levels below, but following the red hue seemed to be the answer as the heat rose around them. 

Along with the heat came an uneasiness. The place began to creak and from its depths came a hollow sound. The trio readied their weapons, Winter powering up his horn. They felt a little relief as Winter cast upon them a cold spell, covering them with a wondrous aura of frost. 

“Winter, you’re the light of my life.” Fable said as he enjoyed the gorgeous feeling of the cool breeze in that place that was growing the climate of a desert. 

Finally, there came a final door at the very bottom of the deepest staircase. This door was black, and behind it was where the brightest part of the red light lie. 

“Fe Fi Fo Fum…” Fable said as they looked upon the final door. “Looks like we found the source of the corruption. Think we should wait for the others?” 

“We’re not knowing when they’re going to show up.” Winter said. Both of them looked to Voltage and she was tapping her chin. Her train of thought caused her to sigh as she looked to the door. 

“Fuck it, let’s go ahead in.” Voltage said as she pulled her sword from her back sheath. “Open the door.” She motioned her huge blade toward it.

“Who, me?” Fable asked, pointing to himself, but then pointed at Winter as Winter pointed to him.

“One of you, open the door.” Voltage gave them both a sour look. 

The stallions mimicked the sour look, this time at each other. They turned to one another, reared their fists back and shot them toward one another. Fable did paper while Winter hand gestured with scissors. 

“Shit.” Fable cursed under his breath as Winter laughed. He made a rude gesture at Winter as he put his black helm back on which covered his whole face. Fable removed his sword from its sheath and wielded it beside him as he stepped toward the black door. He glanced back at his two companions, and they both nodded. He nodded back, held up his sword and kicked in the door hard! 

The room was huge. It was built like a very large courtroom with two jury boxes that lined the left and right walls. One black cloaked stood in the center across the room while the jury boxes were filled with similarly dressed ponies, all of them with their faces hidden under their cowls. They all turned their gaze from the center of the room to the newcomer who entered their chambers. 

In the middle of everything stood the largest gemstone, a brilliant ruby. However, as red as it was, there was a large portion of it that began to darken black as the night itself.

“Ah! Nigh comes the heathens and the non-believers!” The black cloaked priest shouted from the center of the precession. “Look upon him, and repent, my subjects! For he is of those who would fight against our holy cause! Our righteous fury which stabbith the world with our rage and hunger!” The black cloaked priest finally revealed his face, which was as pale as death itself. The priest was white as a ghost, and his eyes were blood red as the ruby which glowed as bright as the sun, filling the room with the red distortion and emitted the heat which plagued this once great mansion. “What say you, foul beholder! What say you to these charges, o merchant of death!”

“Death be my only boon, my only gift!” Fable retorted, causing all of those in the room to recoil at the ferocity of his words. “I say thee come and accept my bounty as it is free to all who would approach! Come and taste the bitter sweet blade and bask in the glory of the unbidden doom that awaits you! Come! Feed on my metal and sing! Sing the song that may end the world! Sing! SING!!!!!” Fable Prose cried with the voice of the hottest fire that blazed upon the world of Starling and fired off the largest blaze of green, sickening light that struck the leader of this proceeding. All of the attendants growled and roared in anger as they rose from their seats and charged!

Before either Winter or Voltage could comment on Fable’s little war speech, both of them pulled their hooves into a charge as well. There were around ten of them and only three ponies fighting for the survival of the world. Both Fable and and Voltage came in first, blades swinging! Voltage, the skilled and powerful Paladin fighting alongside Fable, the dark and gore-frenzied Death Knight. The two opposites united to fight off those that took off their hoods, exposing themselves as vampires. 

The vampires were using the ruby to suck the light from Starling in order to gain its power through their power to corrupt. Now these three disrupted their rituals and caused a ruckus that they aimed to finish. Voltage flashed her holy light into the eyes of her first opponent, blinding the vampire and cutting her huge sword into its shoulder and down to its heart. 

Fable used similar tactics, his sword temporarily enchanted with his green death magic as it cut through the sword wielding vampire-stallion that locked in combat with him. These foes were of slightly lower level, however, with their greater numbers, they had a terrible advantage. Not to mention their master began to cast spells on the players from a distance. 

Winter saw this and focused his energies on him instead. The azure unicorn pressed his middle and pointer finger together on his right hand and pointed them upward in front of his eyes. With a thrust of his fingers forward, he sent a barrage of frost arrows forward, all of them flying toward the vampire lord. 

Though they took out two minions each, Fable and Voltage were beginning to feel the effects of their advantage in numbers. The paladin unicorn had run out of mana from healing herself and Fable while taking on the minions. Fable had done the same with his life-stealing magic and now he was fighting on his last slew of life.

Winter turned his attention back to the main heat of battle and took out Voltage’s current opponent with an ice beam that damaged it and slowed its movement. She took down the vampire, however, looked up to see that the vampire lord was preparing a very powerful spell. A black ball of energy started to grow in the white vampire stallion hand as he grinned, baring his fangs at the foolish warriors who dared attempt to foil his plans! 

However, that was when one of his minions felt two blades jab straight through his back and out his chest. The black blades of the stealthy bat pony took a great deal of health from the vampire underling and dazed it to the point of immobility. 

“Silence!” Spark shouted from across the room, concentrating his spell which negated magic in a certain area. He held out his hand and there came a pure white ball of energy. He sent the silence spell at the vampire lord, cancelling his powerful attack before it was unleashed. Then up went Diamond Sword, jumping through the air and into the fray with a heavy slash of his sword, slicing Grem’s victim asunder, where he was no more. 

Their ranks bolstered and their strength renewed, the band of warriors fought the vampires back and vanquished them from the realm. Spark sent yet another powerful attack, a line of fire, which carried through the air into its path for the vampire lord, engulfing him in flames! The white undead master howled in great pain as he burst into a smoldering heap. 

“Wow, nice shot, Spark!” Winter said as he patted the orange unicorn on the back, who smiled back at him. 

“That was amazing!” Diamond shouted, holding up his sword in victory! 

However, their laughter and gloating ceased as all of them noticed that something began to seep into the bottom of the gem and onto the ground. The blackness that began to engulf the giant ruby in the middle of the room began to pour out in a sludge onto the ground. The tar-like substance was most assuredly the same corrosive substance that infected the wilds and turned the land around it to ash. Its stench was raw enough to peel an onion down to its core and curdle one’s blood. 

“What…” Grem stared at the sludge as it began to move. It gathered into a formless, gelatinous mass that started to move on its own and go to the flaming pile that was once a high ranking vampire.

“Oh, you didn’t believe you could truly win, did you?” He spoke in a low, but loud tone as the thick black ooze put out the flame and covered his entire twisted form. “I am not so easily set aside, young fools. I am never going to stop until my job is complete. Starling must burn, and I must be the one to set the flame. I am Grimoire Nosferous, and I am the hoof among you ants that will stamp you out of existence!” He shouted, and Grimoire formed himself into a hideous black form that grew gnarled arms and claws as his head formed into that of a black demon skull, horns jutting in two diagonal directions. The giant form stood twelve feet tall and glared at them with glowing red eyes. 

The companions stood, though. They watched this happen and there was not a single fearful gasp, not a single step back. The six of them stood firm on the ground and poised themselves. 

It was Diamond Sword that pointed his sword first. He roared the command to charge and all of them complied! They took up their weapons and all of them lunged forward. They drove their weapons into the beast. Their gauntlets stained with its black tar blood and their weapons splashed its limbs upon the walls in assorted, random splatters.

With sheer ferocity, the day was won. The companions stood in that large room that was now a well fought battlefield. Among the items they looted they all received massive amounts of gold bits and gems from the treasury. However, it was Diamond Sword who found one of the crown jewels. 

“Ummmm, Grem, I think I found something for you.” He said, drawing her attention. He walked over to her and she laid her eyes on some of the most beautiful swords she had ever seen. They were dual wielding swords, slightly curved in their double edged blades. Their stats were much higher than the ones she carried, and they even enhanced her strength. He handed them over to her, and she instantly threw down her old pair, swords she had been trying to get rid of for some time now. 

She embraced her love in a tight hug and they met in a kiss. 

“Well, it’s really late and we should get going.” Grem said to the others. “Same time next week?”

“Oh, for sure.” Winter said, turning to Fable, who nodded. “Next week, we’re going to the bat caves to take on the vicious bat ponies of Fargove!”

“Ooohh, that sounds like fun-- wait, the what?!”
> The Mage Blade
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Starling did not rest, it was a world full of life and color, as well as 256 bits of pure serene, blissful fantasy. The world was set up as one gigantic continent that had many lands laid out all over its vast body of earth. In the millions of acres spanning leagues upon leagues, there were all spectrums of natural wonders. In the Northwest, along the shores of the Serpent Seas, stood Gonh. The barren waste was the product of its own wars waged on the shore. Thanks to bloodshed for its resources, the land was ravaged of its good until it was dust. 

The jagged rock formations on its flatlands ranged from the size of trees to the size of castles. Many holes were dug into the sides of these rocks, allowing creatures to reside within their protective bounds. Gonh was nothing to take lightly, not when its heats raised to levels well up in the levels that zap your strength if you do not take the necessary precautions. 

The harder creatures, the orcs were infamous for their cold-blooded nature and were normally good for characters around level twenty and thirty in the more rocky areas. There they were, a tribe merely known as Gosh’rik, or “Rib-bones” in their native tongue. These green abominations stood around five to six feet tall, however, sometimes they came in much taller. Some were essentially the size of a hill; these were rare, but did exist.

These Gosh’rik orcs sat in a circle, eating their latest prey. It was some bird that lived in the desert who also feasted upon scraps. Either a vulture or a raven, they did not care, it was not good but it filled their bellies. 

Then, there came the sweet aroma of something else. Something smelt of hormones, but the meat smelled sweeter than that of the apples they sometimes got off of passing merchants by coin or by death. All of them began to wield their chosen weapons in their large, thick hands as they rose from their sitting position. 

“Whoa, may have overdone it.” The pegasus mare said as she stumbled down the very tall rocks as she got to the ground level and kept going. Barely even a stitch on her, her shirt was on wrong and her pants didn’t look like they were hers as they were not buttoned and they still looked too small. She was white in the fur and blond hair with pink streaks running across them. “Ugh… that’s the last time I use a fan-made map!” She even carried a mug of ale along with her, unable to keep her balance, but sipping the beer so it didn’t spill. 

“BANKLA!!!” The Orc chief, who stood much taller than his other subordinates who readied for plunder as well. “Doomoo!” He pointed out toward her, and all six of them began their charge. 

She saw the oncoming and stopped in her tracks, her nipple slipping for a moment as she looked at it then shrugged, downing the rest of her ale in just a few gulps. As she finished it, one orc was met with a straight arrow between his eyes. The shot came from the tall rocks behind her, as she unlatched the last button in her shirt and revealed all of her fur and her medium sized breasts. Then she launched her wooden mug of ale straight for the first orc within her sights. 

The rest of them stopped and watched the frontline grunt get toppled by one single throw of her mug. Without warning, there came one more arrow, one that took out a smaller orc to their surprise. Not only that but the much taller mare came in, revealing herself to be around seven foot one feet tall, or eighteen centimeters for the metric folk. Her fist collided with the first orc to come within her grasp. Her fists made quick work of him with five shots, and lifting her arm up to block a shot with a spear. She watched as a fleck of blood came from her arm and she sneered. 

Sierra immediately pulled the axe from the orc remains on the ground and smashed it deep into the orc’s chest and armor, pulling it from him and then finishing him with a digital decapitation that makes him disappear. Yet another arrow struck the next orc that came upon her. This time he was just slowed, the arrow sticking out from his stomach. Then another two attached to his brain. The mare met sword to axe with the Chieftain of the Gosh’rik Orcs stepping forward to meet her in battle. The larger, more war painted and armored orc kept his extremely large blade trained upon her axe, then was struck with an arrow in his chest. 

“Aaarrgg! Damnit, Ceru! I got this!” Sierra growled as she began to chop. She easily dismantled his defense with a grunt as she swiped her axe for his chain mailed chest with the arrow sticking out. Then three more popped into his shirt, causing him to grunt with death soon to follow. He collapsed to the ground and the now fully nude warrior mare stood up straight and flipped him off in the distance. “Right here, dear sweet brother of mine! Right, fucking, here!” 

“That’s not very nice!” A voice came from the rocks. 

“Oh, good! Then FUCK YOU, DEAREST BROTHER!” She coned her hands around her muzzle as she shouted toward the voice. There came a small pause.

“Okay…” The voice said in a small, but hollered way. This made Sierra roll her eyes, looking at the piles of loot that remained as the orcs had all dissolved into pixels.

There came Ceru, he shared many looks with his sister, including their white fur and their wings. Their eyes were the same color and curvature. The green chainmail clad to his body was brand new from one of their more successful quests, but his bow was bought at an auction. His features were feminine, even his voice was a little brighter than the normal stallion. Ceru smiled at his sister, who rummaged through the loot, taking things before he even got there. 

“Not even leaving me some of my arrows?” Ceru asked as he saw she was pulling them out of the ground where the bodies use to be. 

“Oh, every arrow is the same price of a shot. For every shot I drink tonight, I’ll be flipping you off. I was on a roll, killing those orcs with magnificent stance and form. Then, here comes brother dearest with his damn arrows! Stealing my kills, as per usual with that overpowered bow! Why don’t we just take down two groups next time! Or, hell, why do I even party with--”

“Sierra,” Ceru got her attention with a brown bottle, full with whiskey. She stopped what she was saying and narrowed her beautiful blue eyes. “Well?”

She trudged over to him with a handful of arrows. She took the bottle and pushed the fletched sticks over. “I left you the copper.” She said as she went over to the rock where she left her armor. Within just a few minutes, she put on her platemail black armor, horned helmet, and kilt. She strapped her brand new Chieftain claymore to her back and stretched, popping her back. 

She stood about two feet taller than her brother, her armor quite a sight to behold on the barbarian class. Sierra had been spellcasters in the past, but she never really got the satisfaction she did when she swung a melee weapon into the enemy’s face. 

“Next time, you’re the one getting naked. I’m sure you can take out enough of them before they get to you and tear your legs off.” Sierra said as she began to flap her wings and lift off of the ground. 

“Are you done bitching yet?” Ceru asked as he put his bow around his torso between the bow and the limbs. He flapped his wings hard and lifted off after her. “I think we’re near a neutral tavern. I need to sell some stuff. I’m down to two free slots.”

“I ran out of slots a while ago, I just dumped all of those useless wolf teeth.” Sierra said as they began to level out and fly side by side. “If we head far enough this way, we can just go back to Galantrot. I think Gonh is tapped out.”

“There’s supposed to be enough quests to get us way further along. You sure you don’t want to hang around a little longer?”

“Nah, with the added expansion, we may as well go on to Mojana. I heard the Abyssinian quests are good into our forties.” She said, but then looked off to the left along the edge of the very large mountainous rock formation beside the two of them. She stopped as she flapped her wings and floated in place, upright. “What in the hell is that?!”

She looked on in astoundment as the black hollow maw of the mountain was opened before her. Like a devastating cavity on a canine, the crevice on the edge of the jagged stone streamed a cold, empty gust of air that chilled the two of them as they flew nearer to it. 

“I’ve never noticed a hole like this before. That definitely doesn’t look like a cave from the earlier levels here.” Ceru said as they got to the lip of the cave. The road all the way up here was a bit crowded with some beasts, mostly mountain trolls and goblins, but then so was the cave itself.

As they gazed into the cave, though, something was different about these things that stood guard. The ones in the cave looked darker in tone, both in menacing looks and a very dark aura about them. Their eyes gave off a sinister glow. 

“Whoa, I suddenly think whatever we have to sell is nothing compared to what we find in here.” Ceru said, and Sierra was not one to disagree with something so very true. They strapped on their weapons tight along with their armor. With some emptying of their pouches, they prepared themselves, eating a small meal at the edge of the cave. The place did nothing for the appetites, but they were very hungry. That orc camp was not the first thing they had hit that day, and from the looks of things, it was far from the last. 

The brother looked off into the cave once again, and the death aura orckin were looking just as evil as ever as he pulled his bow from his torso, and an arrow from the quiver at his side. There were two near enough to shoot, the others were just out of a good shot. All together, there were four. He had a decision, he could take out the larger orc, or he could concentrate on the two smaller goblins.

“Take out a goblin.” Sierra said as she slowly began to slide her sword from her back sheathe. “I’ll take the other two down, just keep me backed up.” Then there was a dead moment of silence. “Now!” 

He fired, taking out one of the goblins as she got straight up and charged downward into the declining cave mouth. The cold, dank air swept past her messy blonde and pink hair. The goblin went down easily enough, but as he died, the body let out a flash of red light from his innards before he exploded. She took some bad damage as she was knocked back by the blast and hit the ground. 

“Sierra!” He shouted as he got up and saw that two more orcs were coming toward her. Both of them were crusted with black barnacles that were hardened to the point of being like stones. Their expressions were hard, and their perpetual frowns and fangs sticking from their mouths made them far more imposing than their normal orc rabble. Without a second to lose, he was quick to start running with his arrow firmly in hand. He took a terrible disadvantage for running, so he had to stop momentarily. 

One shot, he hit the incoming orcs. The closest one to his sister, though, was stuck in a death struggle with her. She was being driven back some. Her health was becoming a problem, as the combustion had struck her harder than she presumed. Now her hands were struggling to keep up with the monstrous beast before her. 

Then she saw another orc coming on, three arrows in his chest and he still wasn’t down. In their arrogance, they had failed to check the level on these creatures and now they were paying for it. 

“Sierra! Hold on!” He said as his body began to glow a comforting blue. He made a fist with one hand as it glowed much harder, along with his eyes. Ceru chanted the spell of healing, allowing the blue to engulf his beloved sister as she fought. Her health improved a good amount, and with one jab of her sword, she finally overtook the beast. 

Her health was better, but with two more orcs to deal with, she would not survive such high levels. Sierra held onto her sword as they came, taking arrow after arrow without falling and she let out a bestial growl. Ceru looked to see his sister had engulfed herself in a bright, red aura that flared all over. As she activated her berserker ability, her sword tore straight through the already heavily injured monster. 

Her brother met the second orc with his drawn silver long dagger. Without a moment to waste, he jabbed it deep into the creature, drawing black blood. As he was drawn to Ceru, Sierra struck him as well, with a much more profound, devastating hit. With two more grievous wounds upon it, the orc was taken down hard. Covered in blood and wounds, both of them gasped for breath. Sierra’s energy was completely spent, as was his. His mana source was almost completely depleted, but what little he had, he kept topping off her HP. 

“Dear sweet angels, that was entirely too close.” Ceru said, and Sierra nodded. “I suppose that’s what we get for not checking the regional level.”

“Hey, we survived, and now we can find out what’s in this stupid cave. Come on.” She said as she collected whatever she could. Both of them picked up around five gold pieces among the rubble, and that was expected with such high level mobs. 

“You’re not serious, are you? Whatever is down there could be worse than these things!” As both of them faced each other down, ready to begin another very heated sibling debate, they were stopped short by a sudden metal clang, along with a roar of pain and splatter of blood. 

“What the hell?” She asked as both of them looked toward the mouth of the cave. The fighting came closer, and both of them wielded their respective weapons at the opening. A zap of green light emitted as another growling voice was brought down to death. 

That’s when they saw the silhouette of a very imposing character. His fur was a bright red but his hair was pitch black. His hair went along with his armor, all of it looking like black iron, aside from some of the gray hinges and the ruby in the middle of it that glowed the same shade as his fur. 

The death knight wore his large, round black shield with a red horse skull upon it, along with his bone hilted sword and silver blade. He walked into the cave, seeing that the creatures were already slain. 

“Oh, crap, I’m sorry, are you two already grouping here?” Fable asked the two of them, and the two of them gazed at him with no short supply of awe. “It’s okay, I can just wait to do this quest.”

“No! Wait!” Ceru said as he approached the black iron knight. “We need your help! Can you tell us what’s in this cave? Can you fight it?” 

Fable was a little taken aback by the unabashed pleading for help, especially when he looked over behind him to see a mare with very similar looks standing there and rolling her eyes at how pathetic her brother looked in that moment.

“Yeah, bro, here. He pressed his hand on Ceru’s shoulder, inviting himself to their group, and he accepted graciously. “Honestly, alls I know is that Helmage is the guy’s name. I haven’t seen any pictures or read anything about this quest other than the normal basics.” He started walking through the cave tunnel, and Ceru immediately began to follow. Sierra waited for a moment as the knight and the ranger began to amble away. The barbarian mare sighed and began to follow.

“Helmage? What kind of name is that? It’s like helmet.” Ceru said as he thought about it for a second. Fable chuckled and nodded.

“Yeah, sounds like someone is saying ‘Let’s play some Dragon Helmage!’” Fable said and they both burst out laughing a little as they began to do a very wide curve in the tunnel. 

“Both of you sure are practicing some serious stealth right now.” She said quietly as she followed the two dorks talking their nerd stuff. Now she was a little ashamed to be playing something so nerdy. 

That’s when they finally came to a part of the cave lit by torches, all down the hall was three goblins and three orcs, both scattered throughout the hall, guarding it from any. These had the same blackish tenge to their skin as the last ones, but these were a different breed, it seemed. All of them wore uniformed armor. Some of them were known as Devotees, but other were known as Inquisitors, and they were far larger, about the same size as Sierra’s barbaric form. 

“Wow, whoever this Helmage is, it looks like he has some followers.” He said, then noticed the symbol they wore on their tabards over their armor. They were fire red and yellow bordered. A very strange shaped trident was depicted with narrow curves in the spikes, with one jagged rung, making it look like more of a fork than a trident. Despite the torchlights, it was still devilishly cold, but that didn’t seem to bother Fable. 

“Which ones do you two want?” Ceru asked as he nocked an arrow in his bow. “I’ll take the far two.” 

“Closer two” Fable said immediately.

“Closest two.” Sierra nodded to this and liked the fact that they were easily in agreement. 

One arrow was let fly. As it was let fly, there came a very strange, green blaze of fire from one black gauntlet. Fable’s eyes glowed a sickening green from his eyes as he let the attack go. The arrow hit, alerting all six of them, and the green flame seemed to blast and slow another one of them. 

Sierra was quick to let forth a diagonal slice with her claymore, grievously wounding the lead goblin. It wasn’t long before another green flame magical attack engulfed the same orc it had before. Then another arrow was let fly, striking dead the goblin. 

Fable wielded both his silver sword and skull shield, putting them to work immediately as he slashed into the fray. The orcs piled on and all three ponies were holding them off, using Fable’s shield as the impact point in case they got too close. He would bash his shield in and then all three of them would stab and attack any of the orcs within range. 

With the last orc coming down in health, however, Fable stopped both of them from advancing. He used his sword to focus a red, lightning-esque attack that connected between himself and the beast. His health points were revived as he stole the life directly from him and he was vanquished to the void. “That’s better…” He sighed.

“Good God! The death knight class is awesome.” Ceru said as he chuckled, making Fable chuckle as well. 

“Hell yes, it is. Though, if I weren’t going to be a DK I would have gone ranger. I love their long and short range capabilities.” Fable made the white pegasus blush. Then he opened a coin purse with five gold pieces. “Sweet.” 

“Is this the last hallway?” Sierra asked, and Fable nodded. “How can you know that?” 

“With this.” He held up a map. “This was part of the sewer quest in Galantrot. There’s only one big room left in this cave.” Fable said as he opened it for both of them to see. He pointed at the center room in the middle of the mountain, and they definitely recognized the path they’d made so far. 

After a good inspection of the map, she was satisfied. Perhaps they were giving this whole quest thing a bit too much cause for concern. It looked like one big baddy to go. 

“So, what does this guy do?” Sierra asked as they began to walk down the very long tunnel, dimly lit by torches. “How do we fight him? He a spellcaster?” 

“Ummm, I don’t know, honestly I didn’t do any reading for this quest at all. I just heard it started a whole nother quest for some serious items.” Fable admitted as they kept advancing toward their goal. They made it to another long corridor, lit by some red lights coming from holes near the floor at the bottom of the walls. Ceru loved the black, gothic design of the mountain stronghold. It was so nice to see the developers had some taste and style when it came to their surroundings.

There was a bit of an unnerving sound as they came close to the great hall. It was a throne room, and matched the proportions of one very well. The ceiling was around twenty feet up, and the walls were fifty yards apart, give or take. It was lit by large cauldron-like chandeliers, that glowed a dark, sinister red that filled the room. Skulls were etched in the walls, their eyes and mouths glowed the same crimson.

“Where is he?” Sierra inquired as she glanced around a very empty throne room. To her dismay, there wasn't even a treasure chest in sight. If someone had cleared out the room, it looked like there was still no respawns of any kind.

“Well, I guess it was something of an easy quest, but it didn't have the sendoff I was hoping.” Ceru said as his bow relaxed with his nocked arrow still attached to the string. As he rolled his eyes, he stepped into the centerpiece of the room, which he noted was a horse skull with the red light blazing in its eyes and nostrils, as if it were breathing pure fire. As he stepped on it, the light in the room darkened to a smaller, blazing red.

“Guards!” A deep, growling voice echoed through the chambers, and blared down upon them. “Destroy the intruders! Take their heads for my collection!”

As he said this, the entrance was sealed by a black metal portcullis slamming downward, making a very loud echo throughout the structure. All three ponies stood their ground in the center of the throne room as they found themselves surrounded by six guards, all of them marked as Elite Guards and far larger than the Inquisitors. All of them carried either an axe or a large flail with very long chains.

“You just had to say something.” Fable said, talking to both of them. The three of them set out to work.

Before the closest guard could approach Ceru, he fired three arrows using a special ability. All of them streaked across with a green energy in the arrow heads, lodging deep into his armor as he came on charging. As he came close, he quickly changed to his side weapon, a green glowing short sword that sliced the guard for another good point of damage.

However, these mobs were much stronger than their normal affair. The fact that there were two of them was something of a point of interest, because now they found themselves losing HP at an alarming rate. 

Ceru concentrated on the already damaged guard, his sword taking him down to the red in his life. Though, if he didn’t do something about his own health, he was not going to survive this. With as much concentration as he could muster, he began to glow blue. His health was restored somewhat, but it was only a small healing spell. The final blade cut down the injured guard, but one still remained. 

Sierra was able to down one guard as well, but she was now in the red. She had no spells as a barbarian, but decided to throw caution to the wind. She triggered her rage. Her eyes turned crimson and her claymore’s edge glowed a bright red color as her damage was compounded. Before she was taken down, though, her skin began to shine with the blue healing spell. Her brother found a moment to heal her and allow her to continue the fight.

Fable also unleashed his own ultimate spell, a cascade of green fire rose from his malice and blasted both of his guards into oblivion. His health was holding out just enough, though if the fight hadn’t ended there, he probably would not have survived it. 

Ceru struck the final blow. His health in its last ten points. All three of them sweat and gasped for breath as their opponents lay at their feet. The ranger was quick to continue his healing spells, making sure all of them were at least in the yellow.

“Well, we survived that.” Fable said as he cleaned the blood from his silver sword. 

“Yeah, but now we have the big baddy.” Sierra said as all of them turned to the throne. 

“Heretics!” The orc behind the throne said as if on cue with Sierra’s comment. “Now you shall feel the wrath of the most powerful orc in the world! Prepare yourselves for the dark abyss!” 

Then came a sight that made all of their faces twist in confusion. Not only was this orc short, but he was especially scrawny. He came out from hiding behind the throne with a small wand in his hand which he began waving in order to cast a spell. Sierra began walking toward him.

“All of you shall taste death at my feet, and feel the horrific binds of hell at your wrists with the lashes of a million-” She slapped the wand out of his hand and he went into panic. “DOH! Please! Spare me! I am at your mercy!” He immediately dropped to his knees and waved his hands around. “I am not worth killing, I am only a figurehead!” Helmage said as he began to blubber.

Both Ceru and Fable stood, their arms at their sides, weapons limp in their hands as they watched this all occur. Sierra began to run her hand over her sword’s edge, cleaning the old blood from it and lining her shot up for the coup de gras. 

“No! Please! Spare me and I shall tell you how to begin your path for the Mage Blade!” This very obviously piqued their interest. 

“Wait, the Mage what?” Ceru asked as he stepped closer to the small orc who was now on his knees and putting his hands together as if praying. “Did he just say the Mage Blade?” 

Then there came an option pop up for Sierra to consider. It was either kill the orc and spill his blood all over the throne room, or accept the quest and let him live. There was a moment as she began to entertain certain notions. A long pause came about from all of them. 

“Sierra…” Ceru said in a flat tone. There was yet another pause and dead air among them. All the while, his face growing more and more furrowed as he stared at his sister. “Sierra!”

“Fine!” She sighed with exasperation and chose the quest. All three of them gained a message that this quest was complete and a new quest had started. They read the message for a moment, and got all of the details. The quest came up in long paragraphs, but overall, it said that they needed to go from Galantrot all the way to Ice Blue. 

“Ice Blue?! Are you serious?! What level is that zone?” Ceru asked as he looked up some info. 

“It has a low level area in it, but for the most part it’s way out of our league.” Fable said as he checked. “That’s not even the problem I’m seeing here. This means we’ll have to cut through the Silver Coast, Allas, and Allas Coast just to get to the boundaries of Ice Blue, then we have all kinds of wintery fun from there.” 

“Allas Coast? It’s seriously that far away?” Sierra held her mouth agape at the prospect of literally going halfway through Starling just to get to the next point in this quest. “How awesome is this whole Mage Blade again?”

“Very…” Fable brought up the Mage Blade scroll, and it was depicted as a straight, black metal blade that did phenomenal damage with just being a one-handed sword. “It makes my silver sword look like a toothpick by comparison. I don’t know about the two of you, but I smell adventure!”

“And I smell bullshit, I’m not traversing over all of those damn terrains to get to a blade I’m probably not even going to use.” Sierra huffed, thinking of all of the damned deaths and resurrections she’d have to endure to take a damn blade that was meant for a melee/spellcastor. “You’re a Death Knight, of course you’re interested!”

“Hey, if you guys get me the Mage Blade, any of the other high class treasure can definitely be divided among the two of you.” Fable offered, and looked at the two of them. The barbarian pegasus glowered at him, obviously not convinced. Then the two of them looked over to Ceru, who was looking over his inventory.

“Oh! I leveled up! Sweet!” Ceru said as he checked for any new spells he may have learned. This made Sierra roll her eyes and sigh, calling him a dork under her breath. 

“Fine! We’ll take the damn quest, but you had better get me a better claymore or at least a new set of armor. This armor got old two levels back.” She got up to him, and the cleavage that showed in her chainmail shirt made him very aware of her large breast size. 

“Then it’s a deal?” He asked her, extending his hand. She took it with gusto and gave him a hard shake. 

“It’s a deal.” Sierra said, and he could have sworn he even saw her crack a smile. “Only if you buy the drinks tonight.” 

Fable tossed her hand to the side and sneered at her. “I knew it!”

“Whoo! Drinks!” Ceru shouted with his hands in the air. Then he saw that the orc, Helmage was still sitting there and groveling at their feet. With a tip of his hoof, he tossed the orc onto his back and he teetered back and forth like a turtle, flicking his hands and feet around in flails. Ceru laughed at this. Then he turned to see that the other two had already left and were walking down the hall. “Hey! Wait!”

--------

Sierra slammed her flagon on the table. They went to the local tavern, there were not only nonplayer characters who ran the place along with a few patrons, but there were actual players there. Though, none of them seemed all that interested in drinking, they were more interested in trading with one another. This tavern was quite popular for people trying to sell the rare items they found along the way. It wasn’t a very big city, and that’s pretty much why Fable stuck around there for what few levels he had left. He was going to be going on to the next level zone soon anyway. It made sense to get to the Mage Blade at this point.

Fable got a bottle of ale and poured a generous amount into her tall mug. Before he knew it, the bottle was empty and before he could say anything, she already had it up to her lips with her throat moving back and forth as she guzzled. He rolled his eyes and ordered another one. 

Ceru sat beside the two of them with a bottle of wine and a small glass, a big smile on his face as the time in the game turned out to be far more productive than he ever imagined it would. 

Then both stallions were taken aback as Sierra placed the flagon back down on the table and uttered a deep, guttural belch that rumbled the air between them a bit. Their faces twisted as she gave a small giggle. That was when she grabbed Fable’s ale before he could even have a drink, then poured it into her mug. 

“Well, since we’re about to get some new gear and face new foes halfway across the long spanning land. I suppose that means we should be getting some sleep. Don’t you think?” She chuckled and held up her newly foamed mug. “I don’t know if it’s the beer or not but I’m liking this idea more and more.” She cackled a bit.

Fable finally got another ale in a bottle and made sure to take three large gulps, glaring at her if she were to make a move. She only smiled at him with a little wink. He cocked an eyebrow at this as he placed the bottle on the table. Then he glanced at Ceru, who glanced back with a shrug. Fable pursed his lips and stood up from the table, draining the rest of the beer bottle and placing two silver bits onto the table. 

“Alright, well, I guess next time we log on, we can go ahead and make for the first town in the Silver Coast. It’s a long enough ride, for sure. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go retire.” He said as he turned to the hallway and looked toward it. Then he tilted his head in thought. The red pegasus could rent a room there easily enough, but his library archive wasn’t far from here. It was a remote place where he did his sole in-game purchase. He built it from the ground up and did all of the decorations. From there, he collected books as he went along and stored them all there. As an archivist, he had a knack for finding the rare editions. He shrugged, telling himself he’d check it next time he logged on and strode into the hallway, back in the inn. 

He went to a room and purchased it for a silver. When your adventurer slept in a bed, it gave bonus experience for the next time they went on their next journey. It was a nice little bonus worth a few extra coins. He opened the door and sighed, walking into his room. The door closed behind him, causing him to turn around and see his two companions walk in. 

“Well, I like it.” Ceru said as he looked around the somewhat cramped room that was supposed to be meant for two. “At least the bed is big enough.” 

Fable raised both of his eyebrows at the two of them. “I wasn’t expecting guests, or I would have tidied up.”

“As if.” Sierra said, all the sudden her chainmail shirt was gone and her very loose fitting, small tank top was all that was left. It only covered a fraction of her breasts, which were somehow looking perkier than before. “Looks clean enough to me.” She said this as she dropped her leggings to the ground as well. Fable saw that Ceru was stripping as well. 

Then the moment of surprise came when Ceru’s long, thick, dark skinned cock was revealed and his sister came up behind him and grasped him by the balls. “I think it could use a little dirtying.” As she said this, she fondled his scrotum and reached around to his shaft, starting to stroke. “What do you think?”

“I--I agree.” Ceru said with a blush as Fable watched them both. All the sudden, his lower armor was feeling a little tighter. “Here we are, guests in his house, and he’s the one with the clothes on.” 

Sierra pulled her hand away from her brother’s long cock, licking off the precum and then turned to the red stallion who was still standing, dumbfounded. It wasn’t long before the brother and sister got to him and as soon as Sierra got his cock out in front of her, she saw that he was rock solid. 

“Oh, wow! Look at that, Ceru. He enjoyed our little show.” As she jerked his cock, Ceru started taking off his armor one piece at a time. 

“Well, wait, you weren’t exactly giving me any big signals, Sierra.” Fable strained his voice a big as she started jerking just under his glans. He chose his words wisely, fearing she might stop if he said the wrong things. “Where is all of this coming--from?”

“What do you mean?” Sierra grinned. “The way you tore through those elite guards. That dark magic of yours, all of those muscles, the way you use your sword… it caught my attention. Now I want to use your sword.” Before she even spoke the last sentence, he saw that pun coming a mile away. Then he gritted his teeth as she engulfed his dick in her muzzle and made it nice and slobbery. Using her spit, she jerked him more freely as her brother leaned against his shoulder and blushed as Fable turned his head to Ceru. His eyes widened as the blue and pink haired pegasus leaned his snout onto his and gave him a tiny kiss on the lips that the red pony didn’t stop. 

“Ceruuuuu.” Sierra said in a melodic tone. Her brother turned to her and she hiked up her fur tunic, revealing her tight ass. He complied and walked behind her, sliding between her legs under her butt and attached his lips to her vagina. Her sucking became more enthusiastic the deeper his tongue slid in. 

“You know, the whole brother sister thing would have w-w-weirded--me out a few months ago.” Fable said, remembering the incident where he found out his best friend was fucking his own mother for years. The concept of incest in his brain had changed dramatically since then. 

“Looks like we picked the right one, then.” She giggled and her brother hummed his agreement, making her cringe a little at the vibration he made. “Oh! Not so much--AH!” He took the cue and started humming like a car engine. “You--little--errr!!” 

She deep throated Fable now, her eyes gave off a pathetic vibe as her hormones started to get the best of her. That was when the barbarian warrior mare pulled up from Ceru and dripped a few times on her chin before sitting beside him. 

“Damnit, Ceru! That was way too close! I almost--ooohh.” She grabbed her inner thighs and squeezed with a little rubbing. Then she gave Fable some alarm with how she was gazing at his beautiful dick right in front of her. Before he could even react, she pushed him onto the bed behind him and attacked! She got in the cowgirl position and rode him in a fit of heat. The white pegasus mare got close to his face and licked his chin as he blinked at her incredulously. “Your dick is sooooo big! I love it!” 

Speaking of big dicks, her brother’s long dark skinned cock poked her on the cheek as he stood on the bed. She wasted no time in letting him fuck her mouth while she felt Fable’s balls touch her butt cheeks. Sierra grinded her hips onto his, giving him the full wet treatment as she gazed into her brother’s eyes, lovingly. 

“Oh, Sierra, I don’t know if they have in-game babies but you m---nnnn!!!!” Before he could even finish that sentence she pounded her hips against his at a rapid speed that surprised him. She drew forth a torrent of cum that pierced her cervix. Her muffled scream into Ceru’s dick told him that she’d triggered an orgasm of her own. 

With Fable done, Sierra turned her attention to the dick that she hadn’t yet milked all the way. Her brother gasped a bit as her mouth did its work. So easily deep throating him and slurping all over his wet penis with her hand jerking him at all the right places. She seemed practiced with this particular rod. Her proficiency was palpable as his face twisted. Ceru didn’t make it a secret that he was trying to hold back his orgasm and Sierra didn’t show any signs of letting up. 

In no time, his breaths became sharp and his eyes clenched tight as his dick twitched in his mouth. The tip of his long, dark dick stayed in her muzzle while her hand milked him for every drop as her throat worked much like when she drank ale. She sighed with satisfaction as her cheeks blushed. 

Fable wasn’t sure if he should be weirded out or extremely turned on, because he was both in that moment. As she climbed off of the red pegasus, Sierra and her sibling went to the top of the bed where the pillows lay. Before he could even rise to a sitting position, the two were cuddled up together under the blankets. Before he could even speak, they were both snoring and starting their simultaneous countdowns to logout. 

He blinked as their avatars disappeared. “Well, goodnight, I guess.” He rolled his eyes and got up from the bed. Fable started to get on his black armor.

-------

Outside of one of the more low level towns in Galantrot, his cabin stood. It was humble, but big enough to house as many books as he could muster in such a short time. He’d gathered three since last he visited this little place. Fable figured it was going to be a while before he came here, given how long their journey was going to be. May as well deposite what he now. 

That was, until he saw that the hinge on his door had been kicked in. Judging by the piece of wood dangling from the latch, it was very recent. Then came the noise of people talking inside.

“There’s books. There’s a lot of books.” A female voice said in a flat, obviously annoyed tone. “I don’t see any items.”

“Wait a minute, this may or may not be a player’s house.” The male voice said. 

“What?! We broke into a player’s house?!” She said as she looked around. “Why in the hell would a player keep so many digital books?”

“Because I’m part of the archivists.” Fable said as he pushed open the door and saw the two of them turn their gaze to him. He looked at the two of them. There was a unicorn man, his hair was purple with bright violet streaks in his hair. The female was a bat pony with a deep purple fur, her mane was purple with pink highlights. She was dressed in chainmail armor.

The unicorn was dressed in a studded leather and held a wooden staff much akin to the druids, as it held a green orb on top of it. His gray fur was somewhat dark and he stood about as tall as Fable, while the bat pony does not near either of them. 

“And I like my books…” Fable narrowed his eyes at the two of them and slowly drew his sword.
> Guild Skirmish
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fable stood at the doorway to his cabin, armed with his sword and shield as he gazed at the two intruders that broke in. His library wasn’t too much of a mess because they couldn’t find anything useful. It was obvious that this was just a book stash, but before they could leave, the tall, red Death Knight stood in their way. Both of them eyed him with an air of caution. None of them knew their levels and none of them knew each other’s stats. Any attack was a gamble. 

“Think fast!” The bat pony woman said as she drew her sword with one hand, and emitted a beam of shining light with the other. Fable felt the fist of a holy light bash against his black chestplate. He was taken aback, and as this happened, the male unicorn’s purple hair flicked over his shoulder as he swiped his staff forward. The green light from his staff’s orb emitted light. 

From below his hooves, vines tangled up over his boots. Fable almost lost his balance as his ankles were rooted to the ground, nullifying any plans to maneuver. The girl named Cinnamon drew her long sword and charged! As her partner, Patagium readied another spell, he knew that he couldn’t take them both without some fancy hoofwork. He hated using his strong attacks out the gate, but this was no time to hold back. 

He caught Cinnamon’s sword on his shield and before Patagium could unleash another spell, Fable burst forward with a massive wave of green fire. The area of effect set fire to the floor beneath the two and they found themselves knee deep in flames that did not burn. The necrotic damage was harsh and both of them saw that there was no other way out than the door that Fable blocked. 

Patagium was quick to throw down the cleansing water. It shined for a moment as it struck the necromancer flames. Once they were gone, he looked up to see Fable and Cinnamon were locked in combat, their swords and shields working and clashing from left and right. The two swords crossed as the two of them tried their very hardest to gain the upper hand in the duel. 

As Patagium readied yet another spell, he was stopped as Cinnamon called out to him. “Hold it! The Death Knight is mine!” She growled as the two of them broke off from the struggle. Their swords clashed once more with a loud clatter and sparks. She ducked under his side slash, and he batted her sword away with his shield as he jabbed. The stabbing motion caught her in the shoulder of her chainmail, cutting the links bad. They jumped back from each other and got back into their stances, ready to charge once again. 

“Look, I was just about to log off after dropping off another deposit. I wasn’t expecting two lowlife scavengers busting into the place!” He shouted, directing his anger toward them both. 

“Lowlives! Scavengers?! We didn’t know this was your cabin!” Cinnamon shouted back, looking for an opening in his defense. “If you just move out of our way, we’ll get out of your mane, and you can go back to being a happy little bookworm.”

“Yeah, and I can trust the word of a paladin?!” The death knight spat back at her, making her face twist with anger.

“Yes! We happen to be very truthful and honorable, unlike some ponies who bring evil into the world!” She shot back his words full force, then her hands began to glow with a bright yellow light. “Now, get out of my way!”

“Make me, pally girl!” His sword and shield grew a long shadow as both of them increased in size. In a fit of holy lightning bolting through her person, she unleashed the chain and zapped straight at his enlarged shield. The lightning bounced off of his shield, but began to push him back out the door behind him. He strained to keep himself upright. He was giving ground, and no matter how he tried to redirect the clashing, thunderous bolts, he had to keep it steady or risk losing his balance. 

Cinnamon kept on him with her attack as she saw her mana was draining faster than she would have liked. Her power exhausted, she ended the charge. Before Fable could use this to his advantage, however, his sword and shield reverted back to their normal size. He cursed, knowing that it was the only remaining mana he had left. Their health bars were in their last quarter and the two of them stood in opposition. 

Their breath was harsh as sweat streamed down their faces. He tried not to get the sweat in his eyes, but it was very hard while keeping a very discerning gaze upon the somewhat attractive mare staring back at him. Her eyes were pink and her hair had the same color pink along with violet and blue. Her purple fur stood out from below her chain shirt, and her shield held the symbol of a crescent moon with three stars streaking across it. 
“Alright, that’s enough.” Patagium said as he held up his staff as green light radiated from it. That same green light came over both of them and brought about a warming light. Fable could feel the damage dealt to him go away and his hit points were almost filled back up. 

“Hey! I said I wanted to take him down! He’s a death knight, it’s my duty to-”

“Oh, come off it, Cinnamon, we’re wasting time here. You said you wanted a new set of armor, right? Well, it’s obviously not here.” Then he turned to Fable, who seemed to be loosening his stance to a more relaxed position. “I’m sorry we broke into your place. We weren’t looking to undermine your archives.” 

Fable stood tall at this, though, there was no look of pride on his face. He placed his shield on his back and sheathed his sword as he walked over to the unicorn man. Without missing a beat, their hands clapped together in a shake. 

“That’s all I needed to hear.” Fable said as he patted Patagium on the shoulder. “Just be sure it’s an NPC’s home next time.” 

He nodded to the red pegasus, then looked over to his grim faced partner. “Don’t give me that look, we’re in the wrong here.”

“But…” She tried to argue but he was already turning and walking away. She groaned with disappointment and started to walk after him. “I never get to have any fun!”

“Well, if you guys are looking for items, I just happen to be questing tomorrow.” This caused both of them to pause in their steps. While Patagium turned his head in curiosity, Cinnamon turned her head in slight annoyance that they hadn’t got away faster. 

“No, don’t.” Cinnamon said as she darted her eyes toward the unicorn, who was already nodding his head.

“Sure, send me a scheduled invite when you’re ready to get to it.” Patagium said, causing her to exasperate as she walked away. He followed her and chuckled. “No one said that you had to come along.”

“Shove it, Pat!” She growled, and they continued into the woods. 

Fable shrugged, then spent the silvers to fix his door and any other damage their battle did to the cabin. Thankfully, it wasn’t so realistic that his books and wide assortment of scrolls could be damaged as well. They couldn’t be destroyed outside of putting them in your inventory and doing so there. 

When he was certain everything was in its place, he looked around and admired his wonderful work. There was the workbench for potions and alchemy, which he dabbled in on occasion. The writing bench, which he could draft up his own scrolls was in the center of the room. In front of it, opposite of the front door was a fireplace that was always lit. Once again, it wasn’t such a realistic game that an ember could catch on a piece of paper and char the entire library. There were small tables, one with a troll skull, another with a lantern and a small potted plant. 

He liked his little archive, but knew that if he kept up with all of the books and shelves, he was going to have to upgrade the place to compensate for all of them. He shrugged, it didn’t matter all that much to him. Right now, he was exhausted and needed to sleep. He laid down in a small bed off to the right corner of the room. He turned the fireplace down to a dull flame and logged off.

---------

“Well, that’s a little disconcerting.” Sierra said as she walked out to the tavern the next morning. Her brother was close in tow and joined her in looking for Fable, who was nowhere to be found. In fact, other than one other player buying some supplies, there were only nonplayer characters strolling around. 

“We are a bit early.” Ceru said as she started for the door. They walked out to the town, seeing that they were, in fact, earlier than the normal players in their region. 

Usually, there was at least one group gathering to go fight the orc encampment, which was the main quest for this low level zone. Right now, there was one guy out in the near woods, fighting wolves to get the pelt quest for the farmer who needed blankets for his family. After ten wolf pelts from all of the players who did his quest, he could probably cover his entire property in them. Sierra knew she shouldn’t think in those terms, but the idea was a bit humorous.

“Come on, we’ll go gear up and if he isn’t here by then, he can catch up.” Sierra said to her brother, who nodded at the logic. 

“It’s a good plan.” Fable said as he approached them from the back. “I’m gung ho on this idea.” He had a dull, somewhat condescending tone that Sierra gave him a bit of a stone glare at. 

Both stallions chuckled as Fable patted him on the back and they went on to the traders. Ceru was sure to stock up on at least three hundred arrows. Last night’s quest paid for the moderately competent arrows that he was comfortable with using. If he got the expensive ones, he could get no more than fifty and be flat broke for all of the other essentials. 

Food, water, beer, ale, wine and whiskey filled one whole pack in Sierra’s inventory. She got a few bandages as well, but felt confident that would be all she needed. Ceru was a semi-competent healer, and Fable had the lowest level life steal spell. Back in the original Dragon Helm game, this would have been more than sufficient a healing spell, but was severely downgraded in the newest expansion. 

Speaking of Fable, it seemed he was not buying provisions. He was standing by a mailbox on the other side of the street. He was holding scrolls that he slid through the slot. Then he unrolled one and pulled out a quill that looked like a feather of gold. He began to scratch down on it. Sierra came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. This caused him to stop abruptly. After a heart beat, he drew a glower toward her, causing her to stand back. 

“Oh, umm… not a fan of people--”

“Looking over my shoulder? No, not when I write.” Fable said, then scratched down a little bit more to the message and rolled it up. He pulled out a piece of wax wrapped in a leather pouch, and held a small flame from a match to it. He dripped a red dot onto the parchment and pressed the thumb of his gauntlet onto it. After his seal was sufficiently dried, he slide it through the slot. “Just telling a few friends where I’ll be for a bit.” Fable said, then turned and faced the brother and sister who looked very similar. 

In fact, he could have sworn that even their blue and pink hair had the same streaks in the same place. Their white fur even had the same hue. Even Spark and Voltage had subtle differences to their appearances, aside from their hair, but Sierra and Ceru almost looked exactly the same. Both their masculine and feminine features aligned; it was almost scary. If it weren’t for the vastly different dress and the very large chest Sierra bared, he didn’t believe he could ever tell them apart. 

Fable shook the thought away and motioned for them to follow. “Alright, like I said, I’d feel pretty good about this if we at least got to the Silver Coast by today. Silver Leaf would be better.” They began the trail outside of the town and into the forest.

“I’ve never been to the Silver Coast.” Sierra said, looking to Ceru, who actually started there. “What’s there?”

“Lot’s and lots of trees, way bigger than these.” The ranger said as he looked up toward the trees that couldn’t have been more than thirteen feet tall. “A lot different from Polar Pass.” 

“I figured that much, at the very least.” Sierra said as she started looking around at their trail. The trees were thinning, spreading out a bit now as the sun beamed down through the branches. They all recognized this as the orc encampment area. When they said orc encampment, they meant it was more akin to a village of its own with different sections. 

There were no groups there this early, so all of the respawns were out and on the lookout. There were scouts and low level soldiers skulking about in the outskirts. The Blood Torch Orcs were the largest threat around these parts. Galantrot’s story pretty much hinged on the story of battles between their forces. Once you reached a certain level, you could go to Thunder Axe where their main base of operations was. Thunder Axe was a castle, but it had so many soldiers and guards that it should have been called a fortress. 

This encampment was the second largest region for the orcs, though, and was a favorite among ponies just starting new characters. It was half the reason all three of them had gotten out of their own zones to come to Galantrot. 

“Well, with the three of us, we could fight our way through the encampment, that’s if we don’t go up against Retamac, the Duke.” Sierra said, honestly hoping they would choose that option. She hadn’t tried out her claymore on these particular orcs, yet. Part of her really wanted to see if she could kill a few of them in one hit. 

Then she spotted an orc scout ambling in the trees near the path. He was very short and bluish green with fangs that stuck out his lower lip to partially cover his upper lip.  This brought a grin to her face as she armed herself. “Fire!” She said to her brother, who already nocked an arrow, and sent it at the orc. 

To their surprise, one arrow sent his life down to half. This was enough damage to send him running the other way. He barely got two steps before he was hit in the back with a green lightning that zapped his life force and sent him to the ground. Fable grinned at this, his hand still shining the sickening green necrotic energy. 

“Did you use a special shot on him?” Sierra asked Ceru, who shook his head and held up his bow. 

“It was a normal arrow.” This statement made her blink. 

“Wow, have we really grown so many levels?” Sierra tried to think back as they began walking again. “Well, maybe we could just plow through the encampment. Even against the Duke, I think we’ll still make better time than if we swam.” 

She hinted toward the very large lake that the encampment sat next to. It was a common path for lower level players to take if they just wanted to go through the zone, unnoticed. Though, unless you were trained in it, swimming was very tedious. 

“I think we can go without taking a detour.” Fable said as he readied both his sword and shield. Sierra’s heart fluttered as she readied her long sword with both of her hands. They were nearing the campsite’s outskirts, where there were four guards. All of them were rather close together, but every once in a while, they would trail away to patrol. This was normally when groups would attack one individually. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Ceru.” Fable said as he got into his fighting position along with Sierra. 

With one arrow, he alerted all four of them. With two arrows, he sent one of them running. With three arrows, he made that one dead. That being done, he brought out his short sword and engaged another in combat. Their swords stabbed and with minimal effort, all of the three remaining were dead. 

They didn’t even bother with waiting. Their HP was minimally affected by the battle and they went on into the camp. The larger guards started to charge at them from their posts. All three of them got to moving. They fought off one, healed whoever seemed slightly lower in HP, then took on the next one. 

The orcs fell in droves, even the bigger ones known as the Gate Guards were no match for the combinations of swords, arrows and magic. Their life was decreasing along with their mana, but they weren’t worried. After just two more guards, their kill count reached sixteen in one fell swoop. The experience was actually quite good for such low level enemies. 

However, as the last two guards were struck down, they noticed that there were four ponies at the other end of the camp. They stood there, grinning as the three adventurers approached. They were gasping a bit, almost out of mana and needing to sit for a while to regain their stats. 

Two of them were spellcasters standing on either side of a knight. His armor was obviously higher level loot, giving evidence to a much more advanced main character that got some good starter armor. His sword glowed red at his hip. 

The fourth was a bit harder to gage, though it was obvious, he was not as interested in the situation. He was dressed in much finer clothes, with a cape and cowl on his back. His tunic was a deep blue while his pants and boots were black. He could have been a good number of classes, but he looked more like a rogue than anything. 

“Nice work, I think you took down the equivalent of a single royal guard.” The overclassed armor knight said, then clapped his hands in the most condescending way he could. “Thankfully, though, I think we can help.”

“Let me guess. Now that they’ve softened us up, you’ll kill us and take an item from each of us?” Sierra said, not surprised when the three out front laughed, more or less confirming her statement. “Let me guess, you’re from the World Turtles.”

“Very perceptive, babe.” One of the casters said. He wore a red robe with a multiple colored necklace of gems and gold. 

“Oh, aren’t you the charmers.” Fable said, holding up both shield and sword. “If you think we’re just going to hand over our goods, you’ve got another thing coming!” He growled, looking the front man dead in the eye. At first, he saw a bit of doubt in his face, but then he straightened himself up. He scratched his nose and chuckled. 

“You’re outgunned and outmatched all around. What exactly do you have up your sleeve?” The knight named Rain Cloud said. His grin made his muzzle look so punchable. Sierra was just itching to break it into tiny pieces.

“I’ve got backup.” Fable said with a larger grin than Rain’s. This made all of them turn their heads to the sides and notice that a teleport door opened nearby. Out came two figures. One was a black haired girl with green streaks through her long, flowing locks. Her gray fur looked as if it were stitched together with very intricate tattoos. She wore a long, dark gray dress with a short spiderweb cape. In her hand was a staff of bones made of femurs and a claw up top that held an obsidian orb. It glowed purple as the teleportation spell wore off. 

“Oooohhh! Rain Cloud!” Jet said from beside Raven Cry. The white furred, blue and white haired pegasus said, wearing a black armor much like Fable’s. It was the Death Knight quest armor. However, she held a very large hammer which she carried with two hands. It was black handled, and had a gravestone head. “Hi, Rain Cloud! I see you’re still doing shady bullshit!”

“Fable told us some villains were about. I didn’t know he meant this lovely lot.” Raven Cry said, the zombie-like pony began to walk toward them with her staff poking the ground as she did. “The World Turtles had already pissed off my former guild. Well, now you’re messing with our guild!”

“Guild?” Sierra asked, making Fable nod.

“What’s the matter, Rain Cloud? You seemed to have lost some of that wonderful blue complexion.” Fable asked, drawing a very annoyed look from him. His compatriots looked equally as flustered, aside from the rogue-like pony, who still didn’t seem all that invested. 

“Five on four is better odds for you, but I’m still--” He was interrupted by another voice coming from the pond beside them. 

“So, they got started without us.” Patagium said as he got done walking on the water thanks to his spell of Tread Aquatics. Cinnamon swooshed her hair of water and looked at him, rolling her eyes. “And who is this?” He asked, looking toward Rain Cloud. 

“Judging by the green and blue turtles on their tabards, I’d say we have a pack of traitorous wretches that are in need of punishment.” Cinnamon said as she glared toward the four of them. “Their deeds are known far and wide as villainous and it seems these claims were not exaggerated.”

That was when the rogue pony off to the side of the other three began to laugh. This drew the attention of everyone as he started to walk away from them. 

“Well, Rain, it seems your attempt at being a highwayman was kind of dumb to begin with, now you’ve gotten us into some hot water. Great job, fearless leader. I’m sure our superiors will be thrilled to know you botched yet another mugging.” 

“Enough!” Fable shouted, surprising everyone around him. “I’m a Death Knight, I deal in death.” Then his eyes twinkled as his very large, sinister smirk dragged across his muzzle. “And have I got a deal for you!” 

In all of the distractions, Fable was able to gain back all of his mana, as did Ceru. With a bolt of green energy through his sword, he struck Rain Cloud before he could set up any kind of defense. Knights were very good for dexterity and armor class, but against magic, they had a severe blindspot. Fable gained back a large chunk of his own life, aided by Ceru, who healed him the rest of the way as he charged. 

All fireworks went off at once! As Fable locked horns against Rain Cloud, Ceru let loose an arrow that jabbed into the rogue’s shoulder. The Rogue retaliated with a throwing knife that the ranger swatted away with yet another arrow from his quiver. Sierra howled as she charged for Rain Cloud as well and put the heat on him! 

As the mage beside Rain Cloud began to fire up a spell from his hands, Raven Cry, the black cloaked mistress of death fired off three ghosts that snared his movements to a snail’s pace. She cackled as her eyes glowed a very ice cold blue and froze him over completely, the snaring stacking with the ice damage that hit him hard and cancelled out his fireball. 

Before the Rogue could attempt his whisper walk to go unseen, he was hit hard with a hammer seemingly out of nowhere. Jet Stream, the beautiful pegasus mare, slammed her hammer deep into his gut. Her eyes turned black as she grasped him by the neck and all of his senses went black as well. He was blinded completely as she used her hammer to smash into his face once again. Ceru plunged another arrow into his side, and the rogue unicorn stallion began to flee. 

“Not so fast…” Patagium whispered as his staff glowed a dark green color, and made vines come from the ground and trip him into the dirt. Chating yet another spell, a giant green thorn shot up from the ground and impaled him straight through the chest. His character died, and was shipped to his starting point.

Cinnamon’s sword began to shine a brilliant white light as she resisted yet another magic missile from the green robed wizard who started to panic from all of them being attacked from all sides. He recoiled hard as her sword swiped him across the front of his chest, and he answered with a spell that pulsed into the paladin’s face. Her sight went haywire and suddenly her control became almost impalitable. 

An arrow pierced his gut before he could attack the nigh helpless Cinnamon. And using a cure spell, Patagium cleansed her sight once again. As soon as her sight cleared up, her shining sword plunged into his sternum as she gritted her teeth.

“Treacherous welp! You will pay for your crimes against the light!” She shouted as the life was cast from his character. 

As both spellcasters fell, Rain Cloud was alone, on his knees and down to ten hit points. Fable had stopped Sierra from delivering the final blow because he was too busy enjoying the spectacle of him squirming and shaking. 

“You…” Rain said as he glared toward the Death Knight and cringed, trying to think of some way out of this. “You chea--”

“I swear, if you tell me I cheated by ganging up on your boys, I’m going to hunt you down yet again and kill you without a thought. Next time, I’ll raid your damn guild with my own. If I hear you’ve come anywhere near any of my guildmates, I’ll make sure your guildmaster knows it was you that his entire infestation has to thank for their extermination. This is your final warning. Good sir. Now go forth, and live no more. Sierra, go--” 

Before he could even finish the sentence, her claymore was buried into the fake knight’s forehead, causing his character to die and then disappear. She shivered all over as the feeling of killing someone so arrogant and stupid flowed through her body. 

---------

“Well, it seems you didn’t need us after all.” Raven Cry said as she sauntered up to Fable and grinned. “However, any chance to take down those pitiful assholes is an opportunity I would jump at in a heartbeat. Thanks for the invite.” 

“Hell yes.” Jet smiled at him. The woman who was a real life journalist lavished in her role of the Death Knight, much like Fable did. The two ladies of death giggled as they stood near the black armored pegasus. “You can call me anytime, Fable.”

Cinnamon looked hardly amused as she stoked the fire at the center of the camp they made. They recovered their strength, knowing how long of a journey they still had to go, but also needing to revive some stamina. Four of them had gotten a decent item from the four they had slain just then. 

“So, Fable invited all of you to come along with us?” Sierra asked the four newcomers. 

“I don’t think he expected us to actually do it.” Patagium admitted, chuckling. The purple haired unicorn threw another stick on the fire, then another. “But yes, he said we could get some items, and that’s kind of what we’re looking for.”

“A little adventuring wouldn’t hurt either.” Cinnamon said as she sat by the fire. “So what’s this ‘quest’ you’re taking us on, Mr. Leader?” The last words she said were spat out with such disdain, it took most of them by surprise. 

“And what’s your problem, Miss Paladin?” Jet asked, a bit of sass working its way into her tone as well. “Is that shining light blinding your sense of decency as well as your sense of fashion?” Jet watched as Cinnamon’s eyes flared with a bit of hatred toward her, and the white pegasus leaned against her hammer’s base as she sat on her knees. Her sly grin dared her to make a move.

Cinnamon huffed, but said nothing more, throwing some dead grass into the fire as her stamina kept growing back to its normal state. 

“We’re going after the Mage Blade.” Fable said, piquing some interest. “It’s in Ice Blue.”

“Ice Blue?” Raven and Patagium asked in sync, and Fable nodded. 

“That’s a ridiculous trek. How good is this blade?” Cinnamon asked as she rose from her place by the fire, having regained her full stats back. 

“Honestly, I don’t know. I haven’t looked it up, but it sounds like a cool quest to go on, and I was going to leave Galantrot soon anyway. You’re all welcome to join us, but we’re leaving now. So your decision needs to be quick.”

As if to punctuate his statement, he rose and picked up his shield to slide it onto his back. Sierra and Ceru stood along with him. There was no argument from the rest of them. They stood, along with Raven and Jet who grinned as they stood with Fable. 

There were seven of them, and all of them began the journey with no hesitation as they treaded the last few leagues that remained of Galantrot. From there, they passed into the realm of The Silver Coast and the trees seemed to go on forever. 

It felt like stepping into a whole different world. Silver Coast was the outskirts and defensive posturing for Silver Leaf, a home for the wildfolk of the woods. Rangers, Druids and some Shamen started there and many come for the quest in destroying the Dire Bears of the northeast end of the forest. There were small rays of sunshine peeking through the tall branches of some of the oldest trees in existence in Starling. That was the only light, everything else was such a deep, saturated color. The brown in the tree trunks were covered with a thick moss and the blades of grass were so tiny, yet so vibrant in nutrition. 

“Ahhhh, feels good to be home again.” Ceru took in a breath and the scenery as he gazed all around. “Just got to be careful. There are some nasty wild life in these parts.”

“In such a place, that’s not really surprising. We need to be careful of green zombies, they are hectic in the forested areas.” Raven said as she lit a pipe and smoked as they walked. 

“Wait, did you just say green zombies?” Patagium asked, drawing a look from Raven that said she didn’t know what he was talking about. The shaman almost commented, but then thought better of it. The green streaked, black hair of the necromancer was pushed back over her shoulder as she smoked and kept watching their position from all angles. 

Fable nearly tripped over another gigantic, oversized root of an ancient tree and cursed. “God forsaken nature!” He spat. 

“Careful, Fable, you might anger the big wooden dirt protrusions.” Sierra said, her sword leaned against her shoulder because she got tired of carrying it on her back. 

Then they came to a clearing that looked especially strange. The trees were still gigantic all around this clearing, but the ones in the middle of it looked off. They were jagged in their branches and trunks, and all of them stood very crooked. Sierra raised her eyebrows at the sight, but shrugged, undeterred as she kept walking. Fable watched her walk, and shrugged as well, following her. 

Ceru’s breath caught. “Whoa! Guys! Wait!” He said, too late though. 

Before either of them could even react, the faces in the tree bark opened up to black voids of space and their jagged maws roared as they came forth and attacked! 

“Oh, shit!” Fable took a hard hit to his chest, knocking him for a loop. He was dazed hard as he took another hit across the cheek. Before the tree could hit him again, the barbarian mare cleaved her sword into the branch that was its arm. There were nine trees, though, and she was attacked as well as all of them began to surround the two. 

“Go!” Cinnamon shouted as she pulled her sword free and started to charge into battle. She needn’t say anymore, though. Patagium summoned the spirits of fire as embers began to trace along one of the tree’s bark and set it aflame before it could do anymore damage to Sierra. He drew its target from her and onto him. As it came after him, Cinnamon slapped her helmet atop her head, and closed the vizor. She now looked battle ready as the helmet adhered to the shape of her head, and the edge of the vizor allowed her eyes to see where she was going. 

The seven of them attacked on all fronts. However, their teamwork had not really been worked out all that well, and it showed. It was chaotic. While most of them hacked away, all three of their healers tried to keep up with hit points draining. The trees were not especially low level.

Fable and Sierra came somewhat close to death, but kept fighting harder as they hacked and slashed their way through the trees. The death knight finally lit one with green flames and instead of burning, it began to mold and mildew as its bark began to die. 

With a fierce grunt, Jet plunged her hammer deep into the bark and broke the tree completely in half. They stood among the dead trees, sweating and heaving breaths as they tried to calm their nerves. Then Sierra thwapped Ceru upside the head. 

“Nice timing on that warning there, bro!” She growled at him. “Why don’t you just wait until they take our damn heads off next time!?” 

“Ow! I tried to tell you both!” He said as he ducked and got into his defensive position.

“Anyone need dead bark?” Raven asked, rummaging through the loot. She paused, looking at all of them bandaging their arms and drinking water after such a rough battle. “No one? Alright.” She continued to rummage. 

“Hey, where’s Cinnamon?” Fable asked as he looked around. Then he looked to Patagium, who shrugged his shoulders. “Cinnamon?” He called out for her and looked around the clearing, in the trees. Then he noticed a ridge with a trench going down underneath it. The rest of them started looking for her in the trees around the clearing, and Fable went down over the ridge and saw that the trench led to a tunnel underneath. 

Ceru climbed up a tree to his left, using one of his foraging abilities to collect apples, this time he used it to get a good vantage point. He gazed off into the distance, but there was just too many damn branches and leaves. Trees were huddled together so close that he couldn’t even tell which trunk went with which limb. He shook his head and looked down to see Raven gazing up at him in awe.

“What? Never seen a ranger climb a tree?” He asked and leaped off of the trunk to land on his feet as if he were made of feathers. She shook her head and giggled. 

“No, I’ve never played a ranger. Hell, I barely dabble in anything other than my necromancer. Once I get her up to the top level, maybe I’ll try a ranger.” Raven said this as she eyed him from head to toe. 

He chuckled and turned around to try and gaze off into the distance again, still just seeing extremely large, thick trees. Then he felt two hands wrap around his midsection. One of her gray fingertips traced a circle around his naval through his chainmail armor. 

“Or…” She said with a changing tone, much like a melody to a song. “I could try some ranger right now.” This brought a shock to his face as Raven gave his ear a little nibble, then giggled.

-------

The tunnel was so small, Fable had to start crawling on his hands and knees to get into it. It was dark, but down farther in, he could see a tiny bit of light. As he crawled, he started hearing the clash of metal and he started crawling a bit faster. As he got closer, he heard Cinnamon cry out as she struck her sword into a small goblin with a dagger in his hand. His body was nearly cleaved in two with a large swing of her sword and he fell dead as she stood by a lantern in a mine shaft. The small, green, long nosed creature disappeared into data as he left behind a small amount of copper bits.

Fable got up as he entered the shaft and saw her turn her gaze over to him.

“What are you doing?” Cinnamon asked as he got to his hooves and looked at her quizzically.

“I’d ask you the same thing. We lost you after that whole battle with the trees.” He said as he saw she was about to walk deeper into the mine. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”

She shined with a bit of light as she healed her wounds and scoffed. “I won’t be long. I simply want to see what’s here. There could be a gold vein.”

“You’e a miner?” Fable asked. He had no real interest in mining, because he wasn’t all that interested in blacksmithing. It was a whole lot of work for a bunch of low level items for nearly thirty levels. She nodded to him and continued toward the larger tunnels. “Wait, we should really get the others. There’s no guarantee that they’ll all be as low level as the goblin.”

“Oh, but such a big strong death knight is going to worry about wittle old me?” She attempted a pathetic damsel voice. “How noble.” For once, she didn’t seem to have her normal scorn in her voice. 

“Hey, I can be pretty handy with a sword.” He said, but then realized what he’d said and started to think on how to reword it. “I mean--”

“Yes, I think your sword can by quite handy in a pinch. We are in darkness and your sword can be quite useful.” Her voice, once again lacking a hard edge, had something of a playful nature. She stopped for a moment, but didn’t turn to him. They were more or less just shadows in a dark cave. She started to move her arms without walking and he heard the sound of chainmail hitting the floor. “You like to play games with mares. I can tell. Well, this mare is going to defeat you at your own game.” 

He felt her hand grab his from the blackness of the cave, and remove his gauntlet in one single movement. He reached out to her and felt something soft. She bent over and he could feel two bare ass cheeks tighten a bit. 

“Now comes your true test, death knight. See if you can conquer a warrior of light without using metal.” Using his wrist, she guided her hand down and around her ass to feel a severely wet pair of lips underneath. “And hurry, we need to get back to the others.”

There was a moment of pause as he caressed those two dripping lips. Without warning, his mouth attached to her very wet labia while she bent over as far as she could. She gasped a little bit. The purple mare tried her best to not cry out as his tongue slipped inside her and rubbed against the inside of her tube. All of her tough talk went out the window as he pressed his mouth and tongue harder against her crotch. He began to grind against her sweet cunt, making her shiver with gooseflesh. 

“N-no! I’m not going to lose this one!” She whispered in an urgent manner as she switch positions on him. Soon she was on top of him and working his bottoms loose as her sex pressed against his face once again. Cinnamon took in how long and thick his dark red cock was and began to lick the length and girth with a hunger. She took in as much of it with her mouth as she could as she closed her eyes tight. He continued his assault on her nether regions as she sucked ever harder. 

“So, this is where you ran off to.” Patagium said, stopping them both as they saw the light from the top of his staff illuminate the two of them on the ground with each other’s sex organs in their mouths. There was a long pause as they both looked toward him.

It took only a few minutes, but soon the gray unicorn’s cock slid into her asshole, while Fable was below her, entering through her pussy lips. She moaned out loud as they began pushing into her at the same time. The chainmail tunic she wore slinked back and forth with her larger breasts as she felt two big hunks of meat grind her insides.

“Ah! So full!” She groaned hard as she tried to keep her wits about her. “You double teaming bastards! Is this how you--ahhh!--obtain your victories, death knight?! You--ooh!--use trickery and unfair advant--ah! Oh! Fuck me! Harder!” She couldn’t keep in character through this. Her fuck holes tightened around both of their dicks as she came hard!

“Yeah, I’ve been known to do this more than once.” Fable admitted as he pushed his hips against her. Her pussy juice leaked all over his shaft and it only made his pushes faster and better lubricated. She began to reach much higher notes then. 

“Just roll with it, honey. We can always use the extra help.” Patagium whispered to her with a snicker as his dick entered her ass all the way and forced her into yet another orgasm as his seed splattered all over her back entrance. His cock twitched out loads of seed. With each push, more white milk spouted from her sphincter and she trembled with ecstacy. 

“You--unnff!--perverts! Men are such pi--OHH!” More seed poured into her, this time in her vaginal tube. More hot fluids flooded her privates and made her head swim with such delight. “Oooohhh! I love your cocks!” She shouted as their piping spunk was worked deeper into her.

She was left a sweaty, leaking mess as they pulled out of her and let her roll onto her side. She gasped as she tried to move to get her leggings back up, not worrying about cleaning the mess inside of her. Cinnamon loved the feeling entirely too much to let that get by her. With a bit of willpower and a lot of hurry, the stallions helped her get back to her hooves.
> The Ogre Castle
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What they walked back to made all three of them stop immediately. Apparently, their companions got tired of waiting. Sierra watched while she sat in the grass, her legs spread and her pussy was in full view as she stroked it. She watched as her brother got down onto the necromancer, Raven Cry. Her skirt was lifted up and over her bare ass, allowing his nice big dark skinned cock plunged inside of her. His hands held onto her hips as he thrust inside of her. She didn’t mask her moans as she gripped the grass beneath her and moved to buck against him as strings of semen leaking out from between them.

Jet was also enjoying the show as she sat opposite of Sierra on the other side of the two rutting in the middle of the clearing. She watched as the gray death wizard panted, sweat gleaming on her forehead while her pussy was consensually violated by a nice big horsecock. 

“Fuck her harder, Ceru! She obviously wants more!” Sierra said as she began to finger herself while she watched. Then she looked up toward the three approaching. “Well, look who decided to show back up! What have you three been up to, I wonder?”

“He doesn’t need to answer.” Jet said as she walked up to her death knight compatriot. “There’s a simple way to find out.” She got down to her knees in front of him and undid his pants before he could even make a sound of protest, which he wasn’t going to. His semi-hard cock was unleashed in front of her and she was taken aback by the wonderful stench of pheromones. “Ooohh, that’s a big confirmation.” She wasted no time in cleaning off his dick with her tongue, and making him go back to his rock hard state.  

Sierra migrated over to the front of Raven Cry’s face, not entirely sure if the mare was into that sort of thing. However, without hesitation, Raven engulfed her bare, wet pussy into her mouth and sucked, licking with all of her might. The sudden jolt of pleasure triggered an orgasm in the barbarian girl who was all around bigger and thicker in muscle than the earth pony. 

It wasn’t long before Jet joined Raven beside her, her tail in the air to give Fable a perfect view of her beautiful ass and labia underneath. Ceru and Fable worked beside one another, rutting the two mares without relent. Their moans echoed one another, synced up and then went sporadic as they plunged deep into their sheathes. 

Then Cinnamon joined in beside Jet as Patagium caressed her body, even pulling her tunic up above her tits and squeezing her giant jugs. Before long, there were three cocks pushing into three vaginas lined up. Even as the odd one out, Sierra was content. Raven was very skilled with her tongue and lashed it against the pegasus’ dripping labia, causing her to cum while her body twitched at the sensation and intensity. 

One after another, Ceru spouted a deep wad of jizz inside Raven Cry, whose outcry was muffled by a piping hot vagina in her muzzle. Jet, unable to contain her joy in the big red cock’s return, had already cum twice before the big, muscular stallion painted her insides white. Patagium worked hard, banging the longing bat pony paladin like a hammer. His long, ebon dick splashing thick semen against her cervix and causing her to tremble with an orgasm once again. 

That section of the forest smelled for hours after that. Even after they pulled their clothes back on and journeyed on, the puddles they left behind endured for a long while.

--------

As all of them, even Ceru admitted growing tired of the forest and the trees, it was nightfall. They decided to trudge on until they finally reached the zone out to the next territory. They’d had some problems with wild forest trolls and a few rogue archers here and there, but nothing else of any real note. The forest was vast and full of dangers, but with the seven of them, it was hardly a challenge to stay out of the especially high level regions of Silver Coast. 

The forest trailed off into plains, and those plains slowly began to grow jagged and bare with dirt and rocks. Soon, trees became a rare sight and the mountains began to grow nearer. 

“Man, this is the farthest I’ve ever traveled in this game!” Jet said as she looked off into the distant peaks of Allas. Nearby, there was a town, though upon further inspection, it turned out to be a city. Many of the structures were etched into the mountain’s rocks off to the edges, and in the center of that border was a gigantic doorway leading inside of the mountain it was built around. 

Relitan was a very high traffic city in Allas, and the largest establishment in those wild mountain ranges. The seven of them entered the town, aghast at the size and intricacies of the buildings it housed. There were farms near the more forested parts that they passed through, but it was mostly just a large city full of gray and off white constructions. 

The seven of them were given leave to do what they will with their brief time there. Fable and Ceru went to the tavern to see if anything interesting was there to drink. Jet, Sierra and Raven walked down the town square, looking at the tailors as well as the food market. 

“These prices are ridiculous.” Raven said as she looked into the blacksmith’s selection. “This is not even close to my gauntlet’s quality and it’s worth fifty gold bits?” She said as she looked over the black metal gloves with the form of a skull etched into its back knuckles. It gave her a boost in her chosen spec of frost power, but she could easily find it while grouping a zone for at least an hour. “Sometimes I wonder what these towns are here for if we can’t buy anything worth a damn.”

“Yeah, you’re better off just keeping up with us.” Sierra said as she looked at their sword selection with a similar problem. One of them was better than her sword, but eighteen platinum bits on the price tag made her want to break the whole damn shop with her anger. “I still have yet to find a chainmail bra.”

Both Raven and Jet looked at her incredulously. Sierra looked at them both with a flicking eye between them. They both began to laugh at the statement while Sierra raised an eyebrow. 

“Think of how much that would chafe your nipples! That sounds awful.” Jet said as she started to walk toward the auction house. “I’m still wondering about this Mage Blade. If there’s such a high expectation for it, I doubt it will live up to all of the hype. I mean, I already got a new breastplate from this journey, so I can’t complain. That alone was worth the trip.” 

“Yes, I’m just here for the journey, not so much for the goal.” Raven agreed and looked into the wide open doors to see many players were in there. She always wondered why so many players just sat there with an AFK sign above their heads. What the hell were they waiting for? “As soon as I begin to form zombies around me, I’ll be much more happy. Right now, all I can do is create skeletons, and they don’t last long in a fight.”

“I bet you’re more excited about the wraiths.” Jet grinned at the necromancer, whose eyes dazzled at the prospect.

“Oh! Yes! Wraiths would be amazing!” She looked off into the distance in some dreamy bit of wonder. “I want a scythe for sure! Some scythes come with a necromancy spell built in, but those aren’t very common and only for really high levels. So, unless we have a raid party at our flanks, I doubt I’ll be seeing those anytime soon.” 

“I don’t know, Raven, Grem says she’s wanting to do some big raids soon.” Jet walked with them and watched as some colts and fillies ran past them in peasant gear. She knew they were nonplayer characters, but they always looked so cute in these games. 

“Oh, yeah, about that guild of yours. Ceru was wanting to join you guys. What is it called?” Sierra asked, drawing looks from both of them as they walked. 

“Ceru wanted to join, huh?” Raven asked, a devious grin on her face passed over to Jet, who shared it. “Are you sure it isn’t you who is asking to join?”

Sierra’s face brightened a bit with a blush as she turned an annoyed glance over to the necromancer with dark gray fur. She stayed silent for a long while before finally letting out a long, exasperated sigh.

“Fine, yes, I was asking for myself. Thanks for the therapy session, doctors.” She growled a bit, making them both burst out laughing. They shared a high five behind Sierra as her face turned ever darker shade in red. 

“It’s our greatest field!” Jet said as she tried to tamp down the giggles. “But anyway, we’re--” 

There was a loud pang of metal on metal from across the street which they walked. All three of them flicked their heads toward the sound as they saw a fight going on in the middle of the alley. Five of the townspeople had stopped both Ceru and Fable in the middle of the walkway. All of them shouted about how a death knight was not welcome in their town and it was obvious that Fable had no favorable standings with these folks. Many of the commoners would not attack unless they were in a directly opposing faction, however, some of these ponies were obviously drunkards and violently so. As such, their inhibitions were limited, especially when a death knight was around. 

“Ey!” Jet shouted at the five common folk nonplayer characters who attacked the two of them with clubs and torches. Both stallions had their weapons out and ready, though they were just defending. 

“Careful, Jet! If we kill these guys, our standing with the town will grow a bit overly strained.” Fable said, knowing they were already in some hot water because of their classes. 

“What’s the alternative, Fable, let them kill you so we can grow in their favor?” Raven said, but she was already powering up one ice blue power ball in her obsidian gem staff. She shouted and cast an area of effect spell that caused three of them to slow down and begin to shiver as they attacked. Two of them broke off from the main group and began to charge at the new attacker. That was where Jet and Sierra whipped out their sword and hammer, going to work on them. 

Thankfully, killing the townsfolk was not an option in this game. As they got to their last HP, they began to retreat, limping away with a sense of urgency. Fable spat as he watched them run out into the street in a panic with all kinds of cuts and bruises all over them. 

“Looks like we’ll need to make a speedy exit.” Ceru said as he got an arrow from his quiver and mounted it on his bow. 

“Hey!” They heard a male voice shout from the other side of the alley, on the far size of the other street. Ceru tightened his bow and arrow as he took aim at Patagium who recoiled a little with a hand up to stop him. “Come on! We found a transport!” He motioned them on. 

“Hold it!” The townguard appeared behind them. Two armored soldiers in full platemail gear and holding identical halberds began their approach. “You are under arrest!”

“Shit! Go!” Sierra shouted as they began to run for Patagium. The shaman motioned them on and ran down the street as they neared him. They went to a large, stout building down the street, one that shook a bit from a very stern vibration. 

“What the hell--” Raven began to ask, but then remember they were being pursued. She turned and powered up both her staff and her hands as the two combined for her ultimate attack. With the spell, Wyrm’s Breath, she exhaled a great deal of frost that engulfed the town guards and stopped them in their tracks. She knew that it wouldn’t last very long, so she turned and continued to run into the building. 

As soon as she got into the door, Fable and Jet both closed the large doors behind them. 

“There you are.” Cinnamon said. “What is all that noise and why are you all running?”

“It doesn’t matter. Where’s the transport?” Sierra asked as she ran toward the tiered platforms that led up toward the roof as Cinnamon motioned toward them. As they climbed the ladders to get to the latch up on the ceiling, there was a hard pounding on the door that Jet had locked with a large beam of wood. 

They climbed out onto the flat roof, and saw a lot of straw and hay all throughout it. They looked around, and smelled a very strong odor of livestock. It was a mixture of mildew wood and shit. Ceru looked around to see that there was a very strong fence that lined the borders of the roof, but nothing that resembled a transport. As he turned to ask his sister if she saw anything, he saw a look on her face that he hadn’t seen for a very long time. The look of awe and disbelief rolled over her face as she looked behind him. He turned, and his face became similarly slackened. 

A large, green dragon roosted on top of the building with a caretaker near it. The owner was a funny looking unicorn with a tophat on top of his head. He took off the tophat and bowed deeply to them. 

“Seven passengers on top of my dragon? That’ll be seventy platinum bits!” The stallion said, making their shock and awe turn into anger.

“Seventy?!” Four of them said at once. Then they noticed that the door at the bottom of the building splintered open. 

“Shit, we don’t have much of a choice in this matter, we gotta go!” As Fable said this, he couldn’t help but still be amazed by the large, bright green scaled dragon that sat on its perch. Its back was lined with something that looked like seats saddled over its large midsection. Its mane was a dark blue on top of its reptilian head and yellow eyes that bared red irises glanced at them, uninterested.

Cursing, both Fable and Raven counted their money and pooled them together on hers. Cinnamon interjected twenty more gold, which brought them to an even seventy platinum. They begrudgingly gave the top hatted unicorn the money and he motioned for them to get on board. They crawled onto its lowered wing as it tilted toward them, allowing them to get into the seats and strap themselves in. He walked to the front of the seat saddle and took the reigns that were bridled to the dragon’s muzzle. 

“All aboard! Next stop, Ice Blue!” He said, and then pulled the reigns in order to make her take flight! The guards finally burst through the rooftop latch and got on top just in time to see the dragon flap its wings and head east. Over mountains and over valleys, the dragon sped through the air. Once in a while, its straightened wings would flap to keep its stability, but other than that, it was a rather smooth ride. 

“Well, I guess this is one way to get where we’re going.” Sierra gazed off into the horizon as the sun began to set. It turned a deep orange color as it scurried its way down in the distance. The clouds around it burned with an orange lining, but were a bright red overall. Against the canvas of the mountain tops, it looked like a dream. Technically, it was, but a very well rendered dream at that. 

“I suppose I’d prefer spending so much money over treading over these mountains. Look at this damn place, it looks like we could find nineteen ways to get lost within the first mile.” Patagium said as he tried his best to count the mountain tops they passed, but they were entirely too many and they were traveling over them quite fast. 

“I don’t know guys, maybe you should have read about this quest before you went to get the Mage Blade afterall.” Raven said as she looked over the quest scrolls in her very large tome. She, like Fable, was an archivist and she decided to bring it along when Fable told her about it before she even teleported to help them fight. This drew all of their attention to her as she showed them the specs for the fortress with which it was held. “This is a tribe of ogres, and a very large one at that. The sword is in Ogthuk Keep, and Ogthuk apparently intends to use his entire army to guard it. Grouping this zone is more a test of patience than it is of will. Each of those ogres has the firepower of five orcs.”

“Oh, lord have mercy.” Cinnamon said as she looked at the outline of the keep. “It could take ten hours to get through that force if we go one by one. We can do it, but that’s a really tall order.” 

“Well, guys, if you want to throw in the towel, now is the time. I won’t think less of you if you want to turn back now.” Fable said as he leaned back a bit, seeming to just be enjoying the ride. Legions of ogres seemed like a lot, but honestly, he’d been through a lot longer raids than such a scenario implied. He’d fought draconians, water walking lizard men and giant war turtles in the classic MMORPG, Fall of Empires. That had been a long, long raid with his old guild. That wonderful guild that was disbanded because of gross mismanagement. 

“I think I’ll back out.” Ceru raised his hand.

“Fine, then. Go, fucking traitor!” Fable shouted. This brought laughter from all of them as the dragon continued on, now he was dipping down as they were beginning to reach their destination. As they did this, the gray fur earth pony with the black cloak on brought out her parchment and began to write. As they came near the landing, the parchment had already been scrolled and sealed. With the flick of her wrist, the scroll disappeared and she sighed.

“Still no word?” Jet asked, and Raven shook her head. 

The snow began to blow into all of their faces as the dragon swooped under the clouds toward a frozen tundra that could be seen for miles. The building near their landing was nothing but crumbled ruins that was once a temple. Ice Blue’s history was not exactly a tale of sunshine and roses. If anything, the temple looked slightly better than the normal state of structures. 

“Ogthuk Keep is that way!” Ceru said, pointing through the small lines of evergreen trees that bordered their path through the snow. All of them gathered together and began to get out whatever winter gear they had on them. “It’s not too long of a trudge, thankfully. Just remember that this is ogre territory, and they may be big, but they can still hide in this white desert!”

“Desert? You’re seriously using the vague form of the noun?” Jet glowered at Ceru who returned the statement with a shrug.

“It’s still a desert if there’s very little water! The sand is just the most common use for it!” Ceru said as they pushed against the snowy wind. The game did not simulate the actual level of cold, but it did use terrain environment simulation to make them feel cold. 

“That meaning is quite debatable,” Fable interjected. “Because snow is made of water, it kind of negates that meaning, as you can melt snow with your canteen. Thus, there is actually tons of water in a snowy TUNDRA!” 

“Yes, but it is not water, and can still severely dehydrate you if you’re out in it too long.” Ceru turned an incredulous eye to Fable. He’d hoped for some backup on the subject, but the rest of the group looked thoroughly uninterested.

“So all of the ice that was once water? Can’t you break through that for water?” Jet asked, still yelling over the howling winds that carried little white specks at them at seemingly light speeds.

“Hey, there are things known as oases!” Ceru said, making them actually impressed that he knew the proper term for the plural form of “oasis.” 

“There are also things known as ‘Stop talking you fucking nerds!’ We’re almost there.” Sierra said, pointing up ahead to draw their attention to the snow that was recently tread upon. Ceru knew them immediately as ogre tracks. The snow had almost melted beneath their feet, and the blood of whatever they killed was still somewhat visible, though it would not be for long. The snow had just recently started to swirl and blow in droves. Soon the blood would be buried in a fresh sheet. 

“Alright, everyone, game faces.” Fable said as he pulled his sword and shield from their places. They approached a higher ridge. Just over the vantage point, there was, indeed a fully functional set of ruins that was once an amazing fortress. The fortress was obviously battle scarred and broken in several places. The multiple layers of the structure was rigged all over it to form some semblance of repair. Where stairs were broken, they had put large boards of wood so that there was at least a surface. They smashed rocks together and mortared them into some shapeless mass to cover up gigantic holes in the fortress. Just about every surface had some sort of minimal adhesive repair job to it, giving it the look like… well… ogres lived there. 

“Looks like some god just shit all over it and told them it was raining.” Jet said as she surveyed the landscape. She counted each ogre, and noted their size and rank by the number of humanoid skulls that hung from their shoulders by full size rope. Each of them was at least seven feet tall, and the largest of them looked like they were well over eight. 

“Alright, let’s go in from the left side of the fortress, that only had three guards to get through.” Cinnamon said, and started to move as the others grunted their approval. 

“Wait…” Ceru said, stopping their advance. They looked back at him.

“Ceru?” Sierra asked as he looked closer with squinting eyes. 

“Something’s wrong. I’m not seeing any of them move. There’s literally no activity from any of them.” He gazed at them harder, making sure that he was seeing this right. Any movement that they thought they saw was from the falling snow in contrast to their stillness. He stopped his vision as still as he could and found that he was right. 

“Holy shit, I think he’s right.” Sierra said as her eyes tried to do the same trick, but obviously, they weren’t as good as a ranger’s sight. “What the hell is going on?” 

“I don’t know…” Fable said and motioned them onward. They made their way down the large hill, and sure enough, the ogres were standing completely still. They weren’t even scratching their asses. They stood completely still as the snow billowed in from the sky. 

Patagium dared to walk up to one of the shorter pale skinned ogres and waved his hand in front of his one eye. Above his eye was a horn, and the unicorn stayed away from that. His body was huge, about as wide as a small pond with muscle and fat intermixed in its body shape. His eyes never stopped looking straight forward, and his mouth was caught in a perpetual frown. 

“It’s like he’s mesmerized.” Patagium said, and then waved his hand in front of that single eye with a quicker, more sudden motion. “It’s a simple spell to perform, I got it a few levels ago. However, I’ve never seen mesmerization on this level. How did someone get all of them like this?” 

“I think we’ll figure that out when we get inside the fortress.” Cinnamon said as she closed the visor to her helmet that adhered to the shape of her muzzle and face. “Be on your guard. If they can do this to a pack of ogres, then they could make short work of us.”

All of them trudged through the snowy yard in front of the large castle. There was a very large crack that ran straight down the side of the castle’s wall from one of the upper levels. The farther down it got, the wider the crack became. It was seemingly strapped together by large boards made from tree trunks in about the most crude way imaginable. 

The seven of them stepped through the castle wall, and straight into the great hall, where they were met with a very unwelcome sight.

“Ah, our guests have arrived.” There in the center was Rain Cloud, standing beside Ognuk in his throne room. There were four ogre royal guards, all still and unmoving. Around them were common rabble ogres, and several members of the World Turtles. It seemed that Rain Cloud had rounded up a posse made up of around fifteen to twenty of his guild. All of them were piled into the throne room, and all of them had sinister grins on their faces.

“What the hell is this crap?” Fable asked, looking at all of them. They seemed to have brought a lot of their higher level spellcasters. Their guildmaster was also there. He was a very large pony named Kane. The large, red unicorn man stood before them with a grin on his face, walking around the statuesque ogres. 

“Well, I heard that you and your guild had some sort of beef with mine, and I wondered just how serious you were in that claim.” Kane said as he stood next to Rain Cloud. “So, I picked some of my best spellcasters to mesmerize every single ogre in this zone as you arrived and have a bit of fun with you myself before you even came close to finishing the quest for the Mage Blade. Once we’re done, if you’re still alive, which you will not be, you can fight Ognuk yourself and get it.” Kane said as all of the men in the throne room began to laugh. 

“I’m sorry, was there a joke in there?” Patagium asked, looking at all of them like they were morons. “Or did it get lost in all of that arrogant bullshit you just spouted?”

“Definitely the bullshit.” Sierra agreed. “Can’t beat us in a fair fight, so he has to do all of this to try and impress us, it’s really quite sad.”

Kane looked at her with a fire in his eyes and a glare. Rain Cloud also stopped grinning at this as he got his sword from its sheath. The rest of them took this as a sign to ready their attack. The seven companions were outmatched and out numbered in every way. However, that was when Raven looked off to the side as if she heard something. The necromancer looked back out at the frozen tundra through the huge fissure in the wall. 

“Hold them off for a minute!” Raven said as she started to run away out the castle. 

“She’s the smart one.” Kane said as his gigantic sword was raised. It looked something like a cow-splitter sword, but with a shorter handle. Fable thought the physics of it didn’t give much leeway in one-handed combat or two handed for that matter. 

“Well, I have one plan, and it’s not a good one.” Jet said as all of them began to approach with their magic spells and arrows readying.

“Any plan is a good plan right this moment.” The paladin said, her veiled helmet down as he surveyed all of the high level ponies about to kill them. “Do it fast.”

“Alright.” She said, then cast a very large shadow over their area of effect. The shadow not only blinded the bulk of them temporarily, but it also intruded on the ogres’ mesmerization. 

“Boss! Look out!” One of the World Turtles said as the ogres started to come back to life and attack! “Shit!” 

Then there came an all out brawl! The ogres were waking up more and more as the battle got bigger and bigger. Spells began to fly, arrows shot through the air in all directions and the clanging of metal on metal happened all around them as chaos ensued! Apparently, they hadn’t thought of the idea that the ogres would wake up at some point, so all of their arrogant speeches came in handy in the long run. This thought made Fable grin as he locked swords against one of the World Turtle clan members. He was the closest to him and it was somewhat poetic that he was a white knight against a death knight.

Sierra went full rage immediately, her damage hyping up while also dampening her armor. Her brother gave her a silent warning to be careful, but he, too, was getting into the fight that was going all directions. 

The ogres were doing quite the job on the World Turtles, too. They were the nearest foes, even if it wasn’t them who woke the ogres up. As the ogre menace was getting under control, though, it was clear that the World Turtles would still have a lot of men left. The seven adventurers were in the same predicament as their HP and mana were both starting to run low. 

Then a brilliant green light showed on the side of the hill outside the castle. Amidst the snow that was falling in the night sky, there was Raven with her hands outstretched beside her. All eyes turned to her as she let the green light blare all around her. The green turned into a squared scale all around her, opening a portal that blasted into the sand and the fabric of space.

The first one to come out was Winter Solstice, carrying his white wand with an ice crystal on the end. Next came Spark in his wizard garb, green robes and an oaken staff. Voltage stood in her large framed white armor with a holy white fire tiarra upon her head. Disterious, the cleric stood in his pale white robes that almost blended in with the snow perfectly. Quick Bullet stepped through with her bow and an entire quiver full of arrows. Diamond Sword stood in full platemail, a silver knight with a white tabard and a huge two handed claymore. Final Cut, Lemon Square, Golden Goal and many more stepped through the portal that Raven Cry opened up. 

Lastly, Grem stepped through as the portal closed behind her. She was decked out in pure black armor that was very light and she wore a chainmail hood with her cylindrical helm at her hand. She looked onward at the battle, sneering at the sight of the World Turtle tabards. She put her helm over her head and let it sit on her cranium as she unsheathed both of her Ebon Swords from her hips. 

“Champions of the Silver Oath! Our brethren are threatened this day! Turn that fear back unto them and make them taste it! Drive the fear into their hearts and let them beat no more! Let death be our boon once more!” She slid her helmet down over her face and lifted her right hand sword into the air, jabbing it toward the castle. “Take--no--PRISONERS!” 

All of them charged, howling into the night sky as they approached at full speed. Before the World Turtles could even turn and run, they realized that this was the only exit they had. Then there was the fact that Fable and the rest of his comrades would not let them escape in the first place. Before Kane could do anything, he engulfed him in green flames with a powerful necrotic damage attack that drained Fable of his mana.

Patagium took this moment to heal Fable and even cast a protective spell on all of those near him. With his mana depleted, he could only carefully go into battle with Cinnamon as the tank. She cut as fiercely as she could, taking on one of the nearby ogres that was causing them problems. The battle, however, was not going especially well. Her healing spell kept getting interrupted! Her health went straight up to full in a matter of a moment, though. She turned to see Disterious, the orange haired unicorn with a big smile on his face. Not only did he heal all of her wounds with his cleric robes gleaming with luster, but he also cast a white hot spell that pierced the face of the very large ogre.

“You bastard! I’ll kill you fir--” He was interrupted as an arrow pierced his breastplate. Letty raised through the yard of the castle, but still had enough skill to fire her arrow straight into him. Ceru took her lead and fired another arrow, this one magically imbued with a green energy that enhanced the damage. Fable started cutting with his sword and shield without relent, knocking the large unicorn man back. He backed up into a pair of black armored hands that held two identical swords. One sword draped across his chest and the other went to his neck. There was Grem, somehow stealthing her way through the castle wall and getting into the middle of the enemy lines before the other Champions of the Silver Oath even entered.

They stormed the castle and clashed with the already hindered bastards. The World Turtles lost hit points as if it were drawing from a geyser. They fell in droves within the first few moments of the attack. Spark cast a blast of flames that caught one of their biggest warriors off guard and drained him of life within just a moment. 

“I want you to remember this, Kane.” Grem said as she pressed her blade against his very open neck. “Remember it next time you decide to be a total cock. Now repeat after me… ‘ILG!’”

Kane put on a puzzled face as she sliced his throat and drew out the rest of his life in an instant. The large red unicorn dropped to the ground, lifeless as he disappeared into data. 

The ogres and the World Turtles were now dead at their hooves and the Champions of the Silver Oath rejoiced in their victory, no matter how easy or unfair it was. When the foes decided to be assholes, who needed morals? 

Fable met with Letty and held her close, kissing her on the lips. Cinnamon stayed in Patagium’s arms for a moment, both of them happy to make it out of there alive. Then Cinnamon looked down to see that she could, in fact, loot Kane’s body. She figured a little peek couldn’t hurt, and she opened it, immediately dazzled by the sight. She pulled up a beautiful bejeweled breastplate and held it in front of her, her jaw going slack. Patagium laughed at the look on her face as she giggled and quickly put it on. The digital data of the game changed it to adhere to her body type, growing the breasts out and sucking in the gut considerably. The purple bat pony marvelled at it as she saw all of the magical qualities it possessed.

“Hey, Fable.” Sierra said as she held up something to him. His eyes widened as he looked down to see the Mage Blade in her hand. The black sword was about the same length of his sword, but infinitely thicker. The handle was an ivory color with a red gem at the bottom of the hilt. “Take it.” 

“That’s it?” Letty asked as he took it in his hand. “Little disappointing after everything you went through.”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t do it to get a sword.” Fable said, looking at the other six of them as they came up together. “I’d say it was worth every step. Now, Grem, I need some help dubbing people some titles.”

“Oh?” Grem turned to see him and he nodded toward the four. Ceru and Sierra looked at him, then to Raven and Jet. They all nodded. Cinnamon and Patagium smiled as they stood together as well. “Go ahead and say the words.” She pulled her sword and motioned for them to take a knee. She tapped her sword upon their shoulders as the rest of the guild stood by and watched. 

“For loyalty and fealty in the face of certain doom, I hereby honor you all with the title of Champions.” Fable said as he followed the guildmaster, Grem’s lead. “Now, I dub thee warriors and maniacs alike.” He said, drawing a chuckle from the crowd. “Rise now as Champions of the Silver Oath and welcome to our humble group.”

They bowed, and all of the crowd went wild. Raven Cry and Jet were the first to congratulate them and welcome them. They’d started this journey on the path to collect a whole bunch of weapons and armor. What they found, they could all agree was a real treasure.