Chapter 1 A new world, and a new world.

View Online

It was a good day today for Tela, not only she was going to receive her first paycheck tomorrow but she knew she could finally spend her saving on something cool for her home. She just parked her car and was aimlessly looking around to find a shop or an item exposed that could pick up her interest, she searched left and right but nothing quite attracted her, except, a strange shop off to the side nestled in a shallow ally, she entered and started looking around, shelves of strange and interesting items filled the entire place, there was a counter at the far end of the shop right in front of the entrance, a man was sitting there his hands in front of him on the counter.

“Hello.” He greeted her, “What can I do for you?” He said in a raspy voice.

“Hi, just looking around.” Tela replied.

“Feel free to ask me about anything you find.” The man said and took a journal starting to ignore her.

Tela started to look around hoping to find anything of interest, she eventually navigated the entire store sorting through tons of merchandise from a plethora of video games, books, manga, anime, and shows. She was attracted to some of them but not that much.

In the middle of her searching her phone vibrated, she took it out and looked at the new message. “Hey when is the session?” The message read.

“Tomorrow.” She replied quickly. “Remember your character sheet.”

“Never.”

With that done she tucked her phone in and continued exploring, she went down aisle after aisle without finding something good enough, ‘I mean the Prototype claws and the megastones were cool but hm.’ She thought looking around. She passed in front of three peculiar masks, too little for her of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost, she checked out a small wooden doll covered with strange symbols.

There was a replica of Gerhman’s chair and his weapon, also his attire and many other, there was a doll of Songbird from Bioshock, peculiar was the sight of a pink diamond, probably a fake she though not wanting to think that there was a true diamond left there on a shelf.

She then finally conceded defeat and went to the counter. “Hello, do you have anything cool for me?” She asked hoping in an object that could have been kept under the counter instead of on the shelves.

“Ah, yes.” The man said. “I believe I-” The man was cut short by a loud scream and the wall behind him bursting open, a strange creature exited a room just behind him, on its wrists there were chains and it charged to the front of the store.

Tela’s brain realized after a second what she was looking at, a monstrous woman, her hair was black as the night and had four little eyes over her human pair, the woman body stopped at her waist, instead, the woman had a giant spider abdomen covered with fur and strange symbols. The woman shot a web from her mouth trying to pin Tela down but she managed to avoid it rolling away.

“You should have stayed where I left you!” The man angrily said pointing a wand to the spider woman. “Get away from my shop.” He said firing a sickly green blast towards the woman.

The woman spitting a web to Tela, grabbing her and to use as a shield. Tela could do nothing but scream as the blast hit her and her whole world went black.

“F.”

TELA POV

After the drider, yes the same one from D&D, attacked me I woke up in a wet and black place, it was a bit chilly too. I obviously started to panic but I couldn’t move so that further fueled my own panic. After hours of absolutely nothing, and my attempt being completely vane, I just remained there, motionless waiting for something to change.

While I waited I started to hear things, voices from the darkness. They were young and eager, all three of them were female, running around shouting to one another.

“I’m telling ya the way was back there!” One said.

“Yeah but now it's not. So what do we do now? We can’t have a cutie mark on getting lost, that would be lame!” Another said this one more aggressive.

“Rarity will kill me…” Another wailed.

All three of them were running around my prison without even noticing it, they continued to talk about how they were going to be grounded for life if they didn’t find the way back home. ‘They are obviously children, but where am I?’ I thought trying to see inside my prison to no avail. I decided to rest for a bit and waited for them to notice me and possibly save me.

I woke up still in my prison, although I felt a bit stronger than before, I started to move around a bit but that’s when I noticed something really freakish, I didn’t have two legs anymore. Instead, I had eight of them, it wasn’t difficult to find out either more than once I hit myself with one after all.

‘Oh God what happened to me? I thought desperate for answers. But I didn’t receive any so I once again drifted to a dreamless sleep.

“I tell you Applebloom we are lost, it’s the fifth time we pass this rock.” The aggressive one said.

“I just don’t know what’s happening. I swear I know how to get back to Ponyville!” The southern accented one replied.

“We are lost aren’t we?” The highest of the three voices asked worriedly.

“Yes.” The aggressive said without any kind of tampering. “We are lost!”

‘Ponyville? Where am I?’

“Girls it’s getting late.” The southern said with worry.

“We have to find a shelter or something, come on follow me. I think I saw something before.” The aggressive voice said commanding the others.

They all walked off and I remained in the dark and silence once again. Finally I had enough, I felt energy coursing through me, with a mighty kick from my legs I finally broke the prison I was held in and I felt the cold air of the outside. I looked around trying to find something…

I immediately got up on my legs when I saw something small and brown running away from a bush, I didn’t hesitate I immediately launched myself at it. I was hungry so hungry, I couldn’t see anything else just the prey that was in front of me. In no time I reached it and with a lunge, I dropped on top of it, it tried squirmed and spasmed to flee but I wouldn’t let it.

I blocked it with my legs and exposed its neck with my arms, I immediately plunged my teeth into its neck, the taste of blood filled my mouth and I swallowed it all with gusto, after a second I let go and looked at it, it started to slow down with its attempts to free itself, its heart started to beat frantically but eventually it stopped dead.

I didn’t wait an instant and opened my mouth grabbing the first piece of its flesh when the entire body dissolved into a black mist, the mist immediately shot into my mouth. It tasted of flesh and blood and soon it filled my empty stomach. I stood there for a moment to gather in what happened.

“I really ate a bunny raw?” I said to myself. I finally started to look at me more carefully, in the pale moonlight I could see like it was day, I saw my slender and very much nude body but it wasn’t mine, I was very little barely the size of an eight-year-old child, my skin was a dark purple. My new abdomen was slim, and a jet black color with a spruce of violet here and there, even my hair changed from their corvine to a pallid white.

“And apparently I have venom now, but how did I eat the bunny like that? I was sure I was going to eat it like a rabid animal.” I said to myself, I started to wander around now aimlessly, I was in a huge forest, I didn’t know how to get out of it at all so I just wandered. Eventually, I found traces of an animal, the tracks were of a horse.

“Interesting, how can horses live inside this thick forest?” I asked to myself. Nevertheless, I followed them, I was a bit hungry anyway. ‘Wow, wonderful I’m already a predator, what’s next, do I use my webs to create traps and torture people?’ I said jokingly. ‘Uh that wouldn’t be too bad though.’ And so I started to make noise and try to fire webs from my wrists like Spiderman, utterly failing.

“I give up how can I do that? That other dried though spit them at me…” I said and tried to do something like throwing up but not quite, in the end, I failed. “Blast it!” I said angrily and stomped my third foot from the right, and tensed my body with rage. From behind me, I heard a wet sound of something hitting something else, I turned around and saw a tree with a silk-like substance stuck to it. “My web!” I shouted. “Of course, I’m an idiot I had to fire it from my abdomen like a normal spider.” I said chuckling. After that discovery, I remained there to try it out a bit more. I learnt that firing blobs of silk is easy, trying to make them into thread and create something with it is not, I knew I had to use my back legs somehow to spin it but I didn’t know how, I gave up trying to create a normal web and and I continued to follow the trail, I was getting a bit hungrier every second after all.

“I could literally eat a horse hehehe.”

Quest #1 Exit the forest!

View Online

I continued to march through the hot and rainy forest. The rain arrived without any type of warning, one second it was there.The mud covered everything and I lost the track My stomach gurgled in clear hunger.

I couldn’t take it so I climbed on a tree and searched for a prey, I found from up there the nest of some animals. I climbed down and looked to see which animal it was, the nest was full of snakes which hissed immediately after I looked inside. I positioned myself and fired a blob of silk inside coating the entire nest and trapping the snakes that were inside..

“I’m so hungry… I hope these one are as filling as that rabbit.” I murmured fishing around in the silk, catching all the snakes I could take. I carefully took them by the head avoiding being bit, there were five in total inside, I snapped their necks twisting the heads, immediately after I opened my mouth to eat and they became a fine black mist that filled my stomach quite right.

“Now, that was a good one.” I said surprised, they were very tasty. With my belly full I resumed walking around trying to find any kind of tracks. I didn’t have any luck so I decided to climb a tall tree and look around from there, after climbing up I started to look around, there was forest as far as the eye could see but I also saw a tower popping up from the tree’s canopy.

I climbed down and walked towards the tower, at least I would have a roof over my head. After an hour of walking I finally reached a small clearing where the tower was built, the lights were on, on the first floor so I climbed on the walls and entered through the open window on the second floor. I crawled inside and entered what seemed like an office of some kind, it was full of cobwebs and dust seemingly abandoned. It is also there that I noticed how truly little I was, I barely reached the door handle!

I went near the door in front of the window and tried to open it, unfortunately it made much more sound than I expected… “What was that!?” The highest of the three voices I heard before shouted.

“We should check it out, we can earn our cutie mark in burglar catchers!” The aggressive one proposed.

“That sounds like a horrible idea Scoot.” The southern said naming the aggressive voice. I heard their- ‘Footsteps? Those are NOT footsteps….’ I thought hearing the clear sound of hooves hitting the stone floor, I crawled up on a wall and waited hanging upside down, the tower was round and the door lead directly on the staircase. After some seconds passed I saw three little horses walking up from the stairs ‘So cute....’ I thought.

“There’s nothing here.” The southern one said, the voice apparently came out of the filly with the ribbon, unfortunately I couldn’t see the colour it was all grey. Then I noticed the other two were a pegasus and an unicorn, ‘Meh, I’m a drider now what do I know?’ I thought not really mind blown by that. “Maybe it was the wind?” The unicorn said to her friends.

“Nah, it must have been a burglar, I can feel it.” The pegasus, Scoot, replied.

They continued to climb the tower passing me by, I just remained there pondering on my next action. ‘Could it be that the tracks I found were the ones these three left? The tracks were very little so maybe… If that’s the case then I can’t eat them!’ I thought.

‘They seem harmless and they sure are cute enough, I’ll just introduce myself.’ With my decision made I spoke up. “Hey.”

“Who’s there?” The said in unison looking around.

“I’m up here.” I said.

“Where? I can’t see anything.” The one with the bow said.

“Oh right, let me just come down then.” I said forgetting that they couldn’t see in the dark like me, I walked to the wall and climbed down right next to the unicorn. “Hi.” I greeted them.

“Uh…” They said looking at me.

“It’s still dark isn’t it?” I said sighing.

“Uh, uh” They murmured.

“Fine, let’s go to the first floor.” I decided and walked down the stairs. The first floor was littered with papers and books, the entire room was basically stacked with them, there were obviously a lot of spider webs but those wouldn’t have bothered me anymore.

“Wow what are you?” The little horses asked together.

“I’m a Drider.” I replied showing off my abdomen.

“A draider?” Scoot asked.

“Drider.” I replied correcting her.

“How did you get here in Equestria?” The bow one asked.

“Ah that’s a funny story you see I was minding my own business when a magic thing happened and I appeared here.” I said remaining vague about it.

They all looked at each other, then deadpanned “Twilight.” came there unified voices.

I laughed a bit at that, they were so serious. “Anyway what’s your name? I’m Tela.” I said introducing myself.

“I’m Applebloom.” The bow one said.

“I’m Scootaloo.” The pegasus said.

“I’m Sweetie Belle.” The unicorn finished.

“And we are the CUTIE MARK CRUSADER YAY!” They shouted clapping their hooves together almost deafening me. “And we are also lost.” They said far quieter.

“Aww, you poor little things.” I said looking at their saddened faces, I immediately lowered down and hugged them.

“Uhm, thanks. I guess?” Applebloom said.

“Don’t worry my little horsies I will save you from this dreadful place!” I said swearing to the sky with a fist.

“Uh, ok?” They replied looking at each other.

Then I heard a loud grumble. They all dropped down on their hunches and looked at their bellies before blushing embarassed. “Seems like someone is hungry.” I said poking Sweetie Belle belly, she cutely giggled and covered it with her forelegs. “Don’t worry I’ll go out looking for something for you to eat.” I said and moved to exit the tower, then I continued. “I’ll lock the door with some of my webs so that dangerous animals can’t get in here. Don’t panic I’ll come back.” I said.

“Ok Tela.” Sweetie said.

“We’ll just go around exploring the tower.” Scootaloo said.

“Sure.” I said and went out in the night, the door of the tower was completely destroyed, the fragments were everywhere and so I had to seal the entire door frame with silk which took five minutes of work. “This should be enough for small critters.” I said to myself and walked around trying to find something a horse could eat without problem, fortunately the ex owner of this place actually had to eat because there were at least a dozen trees filled with fruits around the clearing of the tower. I made a little sack of silk and used it to collect the fruits.

Picking them up was not a problem thanks to my new spider legs, I tried one of the fruits before giving them to the fillies and so far they were juicy, filled with sugar and very soft. The colouration was a bit off being them a bright blue and purple, but they were good so I took as many as I could and returned to the tower.

I removed the silk and entered the tower, obviously the fillies weren’t on the first floor, they were probably just exploring so I just called them down. “Girls! The food is here!” I shouted, I heard a yelp from the second floor and then the sound of hooves getting down the stairs.

“Thanks Tela. What did you bring?” Applebloom asked. I showed her the collected fruit and she gasped. “I never saw anything like this.” She said shocked.

“I thought that in the Everfree grew only what? Three types of fruit?” Scootaloo said.

“Well yes that we know of, we may be very deep inside and those are a new species we never found before.” Sweetie Belle proposed.

“Probably.” I said, “I never heard about this Everfree forest but if it is as big as you say then it is a possibility. Now eat, I already ate them and they are good to go.” I said presenting the sack of fruits.

The CMC all ate the fruits with gusto, and after ten minutes they were finally full leaving me with three more fruits for myself. I swiftly ate them then noticed that the CMC were all yawning and were almost falling asleep on their hooves. “Did you find a bedroom?” I asked them.

“Yeah, ‘yawn’, it’s on the third floor.” Sweetie explained rubbing her eyes. I picked her up and put her on my abdomen, I then created two large sacks and put the other two inside of it, I picked the three of them up and climbed the stairs.

I arrived at the door leading to the bedroom that they found and opened it, the room was a bit ruined but nothing too hideous. There were two bookshelves filled with books and a desk with a broken mirror, on it there was a diary of some kind. I ignored it for now and put the now sleeping fillies on the bed which fortunately was big enough for the three of them, I created a blanket of silk and covered the already existing blanket with it.

They immediately started to cuddle up for heat and went to sleep. ‘So cute.’ I thought, I exited the room and closed the door behind me, I went down to the first floor, I wasn’t exactly tired but I knew I couldn’t stay up all night. I blocked the entrance once again and then attached myself on the ceiling using my silk to remain above the ground, and just like that, upside down and only a spider silk holding me up I went to sleep.

I woke up in the morning alongside the sun, which shone from a window and hit me right in the face, “Stupid fucking sun.” I swore.

“What’s fucking?” A young voice asked from the stairs.

In the scare I retracted the silk I was still hanging from back at full force and slammed against the ceiling then I started to bungee jumping with the silk thread until I snapped it and fell on the ground flat. “N-Nothing.” I said with my face still planted on the ground.

“Oh you aren’t hurt are you?” Applebloom said coming near me to try and lift me, she put her body under my torso and lifted me with almost no effort from her part.

“I’m fine.” I said dusting myself off. “But damn Applebloom you are strong.” I said impressed.

“Shucks that comes from me working on a farm with my sister Applejack.” She said dusting her bow. “It’s also why Ah’m already up.” She said as a matter of fact.

“Yeah, I woke up cause the sun almost blinded me.” I said. “Come on we can go out and collect some more food for breakfast for you three.” I told her.

“Uhm how do I close this?” She asked pointing to the silky door.

“Do you see the lid on the upper right corner of the door? The one that now is on the floor.” I said pointing it. She nodded and took it, “Now just press it against the rest of the door and you are good to go.” I explained, she did that and went over to me.

“And what about your food for breakfast?” She asked later on.

“I- I have special food for myself so I need to take it alone.” I tried to say coming up with an excuse, utterly failing at that I probably rolled a 1 there.

“You have to eat meat?” She asked neutrally.

“Uh, yes? How do you know?” I asked a bit shocked.

“I live on a farm and I eat fish.” She said nonchalantly.

“Oh ok then. I’ll go around hunting a rabbit while you retrieve the fruit. Ok?” I proposed.

“Sounds good.” She said nodding.

“Ok now wait a second.” I said and started creating a little sack for her to use, I made it so that it can be put on her back like a saddlebag, I had to waste a bit of time to get it right but in the end I made it.

“Wow, that was so cool.” Applebloom said with awe.

“Oh, it was nothing, I’m not as good as others with my thread.” I said smiling to her.

“You just need practice that’s all. I’m sure you will make webs even more beautiful than the ones a normal spider does.” She said.

“Thank you Applebloom.” I said, "Now trot off to pick fruit, if something attacks you throw the bags to it and it should slow it a bit, I didn’t make them very sticky.”

“How do you make them less sticky?” She asked, interested.

“I use my spinneret in a different way and I can just feel it inside of me when i do.” I said, I didn’t even know how I did that exactly, the instinct just took over when I weaved it and somehow I made it. Weird.

I waved her off and walked into the forest once again in search of prey. I backed away from the big bear footprints, instead I followed the much more manageable bunny tracks. I followed them until I found them eating in a little clearance in the middle of the forest, I went on a tree and aimed for a bunny. ‘Butt aiming.’ I thought almost falling down from the laughs that the thought brought, I recovered and this time actually aimed, I fired and hit two bunnies who were close together, the others all fled but I had what I wanted. I dropped down from the tree and took the two, I bit them and then ate them with my black mist power. Now full I went back to the forest when a giant creature attacked me, it was much bigger than me, it was a wolf of some kind but far more muscular and threatening.

From he scare I jumped in the air to avoid being bitten by it and landed on a branch a good ten meters above me. “Oh god!” I said putting a hand on my heart. “Stupid fucking wolves…” I murmured, “Now that I think about it I can do super jumps? This situation is becoming cooler by the minute.” I said in awe, I jumped through and between the branches and eventually lost my pursuers returning to the tower, I saw Applebloom entering the tower just then and I followed.

“Hi Applebloom.” I greeted her upon entering.

“Hi Tela.” She said, “I’m going to wake up the others, so we can all eat.” She decided and trotted on the stairs.

“Uh I already ate.” I said a bit awkwardly.

“Oh, but why?” She asked visibly saddened.

“It’s not the best sightseeing experience to see me eat. Trust me.” I said to her.

“Ok…” She said with her ears low and slowly making her way upstairs occasionally turning around to plead at me with her big eyes. But I couldn’t let my resolve crumble, I had to say no, they were only children. ‘It’s better if they never see a drop of blood if I can help it.’

From there they ate breakfast and we went out to explore around, Applebloom says that she can’t find the way home but she swears that the path was here somewhere. In the end we went too far into the forest and I had to climb on a tree to find the tower, we returned defeated and with the girls a little bit more saddened.

The next day we decided to explore the tower, the first floor didn’t hold anything else interesting, the second floor was apparently a storage room which unfortunately basically lost everything that was inside, there were empty bottle and dust. The third floor was the one with the bedroom where the CMC slept, I finally remembered about the journal and so Sweetie took it saying that she wanted to look at it for a bit.

I allowed it and she started reading right away, we left her in the bedroom and went up even more, there we found a closed door. We tried and tried but the door wouldn’t budge no matter what so we gave up on that.

“Lame, can’t we just bash in with a branch or something?” Scootaloo suggested.

“The door seems to be very sturdy, so no I don’t think we can.” I said shooting down her idea.

“Come on girls let’s go downstairs and get Sweetie Belle, then we are going to make dinner.” She said.

“Make dinner.” Scootaloo said with irony rolling her eyes. “Not like we are going to eat fruits again.” She said.

“Don’t be picky, there isn’t a lot of variety of food here.” Applebloom said sternly.

“Come on, let’s go.” I said. They went to the third floor while I returned to the first one.

The CMC returned after a bit and scurried to the little table that remained somewhat in one piece in the room, they sat in front of the very small table and started to eat their fruit.

“So what did you find in that journal Sweetie?” I asked.

“Uhm, lots of spells. Like a big lot of those.” She said gulping down her food. This unicorn was called Bonez. Its journal is filled with strange spells I have never seen before… Fireballs, Ice cone and so on, all of those are really dangerous.” She explained. “Just who was this pony? Somepony like Twilight? But she never showed us these spells…” She said looking down in thought.

I put a finger on my chin and thought about what she said then replied. “Listen, I don’t think you need to learn those combat spells-” I was suddenly interrupted by the sound of something smashing against the door. “What was that?”

Another hit sound and this time the door slightly shook as well, “What the?” I asked before the door was slammed open and a walking corpse entered the room, the zombie was in a severe state of decomposition with a big chunk of his face missing, it emitted a foul odor and had a tree branch lodged in his leg.

That was also when I truly noticed how small I was compared to a human, I arrived barely at his knee with my head. “AAAAAAAAH!” Sweetie belle shrieked diving behind me trembling like a leaf.

“What is that?!” Applebloom asked shouting and pointing at it.

“Zombie.” I said eyeing it carefully.

“Cool!” Scootaloo said. “Do we have to beat it?” She also asked.

“Unfortunately. Sweetie stay with Applebloom, Applebloom you stay away from this thing, Scootaloo I’m trusting you to keep it focused on you until I am ready.” I said coming up with a plan. I couldn’t use my blob of silk, it was simply too tiny to work so I had to think smart.

Scootaloo saluted and shouted in his face. “Hey, flybag!” Making him follow her. I seized the opportunity and started to create a long string, when I finished I created another one and weaved them together. I stuck one end of it to the wall and the other end to the wall in front of it.

“Scootaloo make him trip!” I told her, she nodded and jumped over the silk, the zombie did not and fell face first into the stone floor. I took the wood table leg and ripped it off creating a club for me. I went near the zombie and smashed his head with it over and over until it stopped moving.

I turned around covered in blood and brain, I was panting a bit but I was fine. “Ok girls, I don’t know what that was but-”

“There’s another one!” Sweetie Belle said pointing at the stairs, a lone zombie was there, he was without arms and was crawling like a worm to descend the stairs.

“Oh for fuck sake.” I swore and smashed his head too. “Come on girls we have to find out where this one came from, stick behind me and don’t wander off.” I ordered, they followed my instructions and went behind me in a straight line. We went up the stairs and reached the fourth floor were the door was now wide open, inside the room there were hundreds of bottles filled with eyes, fish and other creatures. There was a table made of marble full of bones and ritual circles.

On the wall in front of the door there were a pair of shackles with the zombie’s arms still attached to it. “Necromancer…” I said looking around, “We are in the tower of a necromancer.”

“What’s a necromancer?” Sweetie asked.

“A necromancer is a mage which managed to revive and control the dead to do his bidding, they are very powerful foes but they are not all evil. But when they are bad, oh boy, they are nasty.” I explained to her. I saw that on a shelf there was a big black book with a red pentagram on it, I took it and handed it to Sweetie Belle. “Here this is probably his spell book for necromancy, see if you can find anything useful in that thing to help us defeat the zombies, or maybe some spells to kill them instantly or something.” I said. I wasn’t worried about her studying necromancy, I wasn’t one to judge after all, and having someone like a necromancer helping us out would have been very useful.

“Now let’s go, we must find a way out of the forest.” I said.

“But why?” Applebloom asked.

“Duh, zombies found us.” Scootaloo replied rolling her eyes.

“Exactly he could have released dozens of them around the tower we are not safe here, let’s go.” I gathered as many valuable objects I could find like a handful of gems that were hidden inside a drawer, and with that we departed from the tower and entered the forest, direction unknown and goal obscure we entered with a hope to find civilization. We walked through the midday hot forest leaving behind our only refuge so far, I put myself in the lead of the group with Applebloom behind me, Sweetie in the middle and Scootaloo as our back.

I climbed on a tree to search for any sign of civilization but didn’t find any, so we continued. Hours passed in basically silence, the CMC started to feel the heat and the fatigue of walking, thankfully my half spider body gifted me with lots of heat resistance and heat dissipation, I was also the only one that didn’t have a problem travelling through the incredibly dissestato terrain.

After five hours of walking we took a break, the girls went to a nearby pond to drink a little, the pond wasn’t big but was connected through two rivers, and i saw some animals drinking from it so I knew it was safe. I on the other hand, climbed on a tree and scouted ahead, finally after all this time I saw the end of the forest.

“Hey girls! I see the end of the forest!” I shouted to them. Suddenly I saw a figure moving from just out of my field of vision and instinctively ducked, a giant wolf like the ones I have encountered before almost caught me.

“Goddammit!” I swore scared from the sudden attack, I looked around and saw that the wolf was preparing to lunge at me again, I jumped on a tree branch further up and continued to jump through the branches to reach the girls.

“GIRLS!” I shouted. “Get close, we are under attack!”

“Where?” They shouted.

“Up here!” I said and let a string of silk fall down, they grabbed it with their hooves, somehow, and I dragged them all up on the tree. The wolves appeared from the bushes and tried to snap at us.

“Can’t we do anything?” Scootaloo asked.

“No, those are not simple zombies, those are damn big wolves. It’s better if we stay here until they get bored of us.” I said, they all nodded and so we stayed there waiting. We had to wait for three hours before they left and by that time the sun was down, leaving us in the darkness.

“Ok girls, you stay here, I’ll scout around to see if they are gone and to find some food for us.” I said.

“Uhm Tela…” Applebloom said.

“What is it Applebloom?” I said looking back at her, she was squirming left and right in sinc with her friends.

“We need to use the bathroom.” She whispered.

“Damn…” I said with a whisper, “Ok give me a minute to see if they are truly gone and then I’ll let you down, don’t go too far.” I said and with that I climbed down from the tree. I could see clearly in the night and so I started to look around, fortunately the wolves did go away, with this information I put the CMC back on the ground and they did what they had to.

After that I improved our makeshift base with a security string so that they can’t roll over and fall, I told them to just sleep for now and that we will continue in the morning. When they went to sleep I went out to hunt, I found some more rabbits for me and two snakes as a bonus. I returned to the camp and went to sleep above the CMC.

I woke up again with the sun almost burning out my eyes, “Good morning.” I said murmuring.

“Morning Tela.” Applebloom said greeting me.

“Come on, wake the others up, we are almost out of this forest.” I said. Fortunately the other two didn’t need too much effort to wake up and so we started walking off to the exit. After another three hours of walking we finally exited the forest.

“YEAH!” Scootaloo shouted. “We did it!” She started jumping up and down in a circle, then the others registered exactly what happened and joined her.

I laughed at their antics and waited for them to finish, when they were spent from the happiness of getting out alive I started to look around finding a convenient road just ahead of us, the road was made of dirt and basically hugged the entire forest from what I could see.

“Ok girls, left or right?” I asked.

“Uhmm.” They said in unison. “Right.” Scoot said.

“I agree.” Applebloom confirmed and sweetie nodded.

“Right it is then. I mean it is the right choice after all.” I said punning around.

“Oh great she also make puns.” Scootaloo said rolling her eyes.

“Come on girls, the faster we move the faster we find a city.” I said optimistically.

Quest #2 Travel To The City

View Online

We rested on the side of the road for a bit before finally moving on, while we walked we started to talk about what we wanted to do when we reached this Ponyville.

“I want to immediately hide.” Applebloom said. “AJ will be mad I was gone so long.” She said with a bit of fear.

“Same.” Said Sweetie Belle.

“And you?” I said noticing that Scootaloo wasn’t saying anything.

“Hm? Me? I don’t care. I want to tell Rainbow Dash how cool I was when I faced that zombie.” She said punching the air.

“Uh, ok I guess.” I said perplessa by her lack of fear for authoritative figures. “So I never actually asked but what’s the name of your parents?”

“Hmm, well AJ says they died when I was very little so I don’t really remember them.” Applebloom explained, a bit sad sure but nothing too melodramatic.

“Well my parents are Hondo flanks and Cookie Crumbler, but they are always out of town so I always stay with my sister Rarity.” Sweetie explained. “She is a seamstress and always make the best outfits ever.” She said, bouncing around, thanks to that I noticed that she lost one of her fruits on the ground.

“Wait, let me see your bag.” I told her, she handed it to me with her magic and I took it, I carefully examined it and found out a hole in the side of it. “Oh dear this won’t do, it probably broke when we climbed those trees.” I said and immediately started to produce silk to repair the damage.

After five minutes or so I patched it up good and returned it to her. “There, all done.” I said with a smile.

“That was incredible! How did you do that?” She asked.

“Well patching things up is not difficult, and my silk can be very sticky so I just weaved the silk in a patch and stuck it on.” I said explaining.

“Yes I saw that.” She said eyeing me, “I mean how did you weave it with just your paws?”

“They are hands.” I corrected her. “And I learned it when I was a scout girl.” I said. “I’ll explain later what I mean, for now, let’s just move on.” I continued at their perplexed faces. “But what about your parents Scoot?”

“My parents are absolutely awesome! They travel the world and wrestle cragadile.” She said with confidence.

“Ok, I guess.” I said shrugging, then I talked to Sweetie. “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you to weave if you like.” I said completely and blatantly lying because I don’t have the slightest idea on how to teach a pony how to weave without hands.

“You will teach me?” Sweetie asked hopefully.

“Of course Sweetie… “I said a bit unsure, but I couldn’t tell her no then. ‘Seems like I will have to do a lot of late study to become good at this string thing, at least good enough that I can teach a pony.’ I thought.

“Well at least the sky is clear and there are no clouds incoming, the weather is good and the road is clear.” I said optimistically. “And no giant wolves.” I laughed.

“Please don’t make me think about it.” Scootaloo said. “Imagine having to fight one.”

“True my pegasus why don’t you-” I was going to say scout ahead by flying but then I noticed how tiny her wings were. ‘She must be really little, I thought pegasi could fly in less than a year from their birth.’

“What?” She asked looking at me.

“Why don’t you tell me more about this Rainbow Dash, I said barely remembering the name saving myself from an awkward situation. She then started to rumble about how great she is and how awesome she is etcetera etcetera.

I barely listened to her, I was more drawn to the fact that at the horizon I could see the light figure of a moon, but it was a little strange, it was too little to be my moon. Not that I was thinking I was still on Earth or something like that even a moron could see that wasn’t the case.

No, I was trying to think of places I knew from my Sci-Fi memory or RPGs but nothing came to mind. ‘Whatever, even if I knew the place I wouldn’t be able to gather where we were on that map even if I could remember it well enough.’

We continued to chat along the way, I learned about their city how they live there and how much of a cataclysm magnet it is. The owner of the library, this Twilight Sparkle especially struck me as the kind of person that willingly or not is always in the middle of those cataclysms. We arrived through our walking to a section of hills, not too high but still, it would have taken too much effort to actually climb them.

“Come on we follow the path in this canyon.” I said pointing to the narrow entrance. They followed forth and we entered.

Our journey was suddenly stopped by the appearance of a tall man, he was clothed with leather armor and on his hip was a sword, the man had a black long beard and two long nasty scars under his right eye. He approached us and said, “Well, well, well, what do we have here? A drider and three little ponies, what are you taking them to your nest to eat them?” He asked pointing at me.

“What? No are you insane?” I asked back shocked.

“Oh well, it’s not exactly my problem you see…” He said and rested a hand on his sword. ‘I don’t like it.’ I thought and started to look around.

“Because you see, you are not going to leave here alive. Fire!” He shouted and an arrow immediately hit my bag, I was pulled down from it and almost fell over. Then from behind a rock, I saw another man, this one had metal armor and sported a crossbow, his face was covered by a helm.

“Oh yeah, good shot was that.” He said, “Now don’t make any sudden moves laddie and no one will have to die immediately.”

The girls screamed in fear when the arrow hit then they fell silent except Scootaloo. “Hey! You can’t do this!” She shouted.

“Shut up horse!” The first man shouted and kicked her in the face making her fall on the ground holding her muzzle in pain. “You will only be good for work after we sell you to the slave market.” He continued laughing.

In his incompetence though he forgot about me. I was more than angry in that moment so I ripped the arrow out of the bag and quickly stabbed the man in his knee, he fell down screaming, I seized the opportunity and immediately bit him hard on the neck. The other man quickly tried to reload his crossbow.

“Scoot take him!” I shouted with a mouthful of blood, the man I bit in the meantime started to convulse before going still. He was still breathing but was completely paralyzed, he gurgled a bit but I quickly forgot about him, Scootaloo in the meantime was wrestling with a man at least four times her size.

She wasn’t winning but at least he couldn’t reload his crossbow, I shot a blob of silk against his foot which made him trip, I quickly went near him as he hit the ground and looked over his helm, I didn’t see his face and just bit down on his neck. Like the other, he convulsed and got paralyzed.

“Sigh, what a mess.” I said cleaning my mouth from the blood. “Come on girls take whatever you need and let’s go.” I ordered. Scootaloo quickly snagged the crossbow for herself alongside some darts, Sweetie outright refused to touch them and AB didn’t want anything from them. I was a D&D player though and knew that everything can be sold.

So I took the sword, I then stripped them down leaving them without any armor and draped the sets over my abdomen, I searched in their pockets but there was nothing useful just some coin and a loaf of bread. I put the two men near a rock and then slapped them both two times. “Now you will think twice before attacking children.” I said sternly, “Come on girls let’s go.”

After we left the scene they all voiced their doubts. “This is not Equestria.” Sweetie said. “What were those?”

“Those were Humans, a race of bipedal creatures.” I explained briefly.

“What did they want to do with us?” Applebloom asked.

“Probably sell you as slaves, or worse.” I said not wanting to share my thought with her on the worst-case scenario.

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo said with a bloody muzzle. “Can we do it again?”

“Oh lord Scoot, come over here I’ll try to see if I can do anything to heal that injury.” I said worriedly walking to her.

“Don’t worry, I'm fine. Besides we don’t have any medical equi-ecui- whatever.” She said stuttering on the final word.

“Equipment.” Sweetie Belle helpfully provided.

“What are you? A dictionary?” Scootaloo replied.

“Girls, please don’t argue. Come on let’s see if they had a camp nearby where we can find some stuff.” I said, we eventually discovered their camp inside of a cave, there was even a cart there, probably from a raided caravan.

I searched inside for anything valuable and with luck, I found lots of clothes and food, but also some small pockets full of silver and copper coins, the symbols on them were completely foreign to me. “Weird, but not so uncommon. This seems a somewhat normal medieval time so using metals for coins is normal.” I said to myself.

“Hey, Tela!” I heard from outside. “Did you find anything useful?” Applebloom asked.

“Ya, some coins, clothes and other little things like food.” I replied coming out, they were all looking around too, trying to find something useful in the backpacks that were around the little fire pit, the charcoal now cold.. “How about you?”

“Nothing useful, food, water, clothes, and this strange bottle.” Sweetie said pulling out a red colored glass bottle with a deep red liquid inside. I took it from her magic and looked it over.

“Weird… It’s best if we keep it, just so if it is worth something.” I said and put it back in the bag. I looked around and noticed that there were no horses around. ‘How did they bring the cart here without horses? And if they brought horses then why leave them instead of keeping them?’ I thought it was a bit strange after all. In the end, we decided to remain at the camp and rest up a bit, I wasn’t worried about the bandits if they wanted to return I would have dealt with them, night fell quickly during the hours of rest. They talked about how incredibly harsh their punishments will be when they go home and similar things.

“Ok, girls I’m going for a quick snack.” I said to them, they nodded and went to sleep in the cart. I went out to hunt down some more rabbits, foxes, and snakes, I was incredibly hungry that night. Suddenly in the middle of the night I felt something very wrong with me, I felt like I was cramped, my legs hurt, my everything hurt, I fell down on my knees and thrashed on the ground for a bit before going still.

I blacked out after that and returned to my senses the next morning, the sun was already up and I looked around. I was still in the same place where I blacked out but next to me there was my body, or at least my abdomen, opened up like a tin can and completely lifeless. I checked myself out and noticed many things, first: I was taller, not much but still noticeable, I also felt good, like after you take a nice long hot bath. I stood up and checked out my own exoskeleton, it was dry but still a bit shiny I lifted it up and it was surprisingly light.

“So cool…” I said to myself, I walked over it but I also felt a bit of… extra weight. I looked down and saw my own old teenager titties hanging there. “Oh welcome back you two, you enjoyed your vacation?” I asked them. Of course, they didn’t answer that would have been weird, I shrugged feeling them jiggle around, it was a familiar sensation at least. I took my exoskeleton and dragged it to the bandit old camp.

I arrived at the camp seeing the old cart almost completely destroyed, the wheels were not there, and many other parts were missing too. “What happened?” I asked out loud.

“Oh, Tela! You are back.” Sweetie said looking up from her book, “Did you grow up?” She asked noticing my new stature. “And why do you have that with you?”

“Oh, this?” I said pointing at my exoskeleton “I molted during the night and grew up.” I simply told her.

“Just like that?” She asked skeptically.

“Yep.” I replied easily. “So what happened here?” I asked.

“Scoot and Applebloom wanted to create a new CMC cart to carry our stuff around, the cart was too big before.” She explained.

“Uh, cool. And what are you reading?”

“Simple stuff apparently, it explains here that any self-respecting necromancer should know at least two cantrips and six different spells. It also says that beginners can only throw around two spells of first level every day, which is weird, Twilight can throw much more than just that.” She said looking pensive.

“And what cantrips and spells did you learn?” I asked her, evidently this world used a D&D magic system which is good, at least I know the bounds of the magic.

“There was a little list here but ultimately I chose Icy Touch and Minor Illusion.” She said and made some motion with her horn which also sparkled with magic, then she called used her magic and summoned a voice from behind the cart, "Hey scoot, ab, this is a test wooooo." She said with a spectral voice.

“That’s uh cool?” I said uncertainly.

“Sure is, and for the other… Well, I don’t know, I never tested it cause it is for attack only and I didn’t want to use it on my friends.”

“Understandable, let me look around if I can find a bug or something for you.” I said and started to look around, fortunately, I found a beetle laying around on a rock, I took it in my hands and brought it to Sweetie, I stuck the beetle down with some of my silk and moved next to her. “Fire at will.”

She repeated some strange motions and words before a spectral skeletal hand appeared from nowhere and grasped the bug, killing it immediately. “Good job.” I said ruffling her mane.

“Hehe, thanks Tela.”

“Hey, girls we are almost finished and- Tela?” She said interrupting what she was saying, “Did you?”

“Grow up yes.” I said immediately. “I grow very fast don’t worry, continue.” I said motioning her with my hand.

“Oh, ok. Me and Scoot are almost done with the cart and we can move on in a little while.” She said proudly and returned to work on the vehicle.

“Also Tela, I learned how to use firebolt.” She said and demonstrated it by blasting a fiery projectile against a tree burning the bark a bit. “And there are a lot of spells here too, but I can only seem to do these six. Magic missile, Ray of sickness, Find familiar, False Life, Sleep and Protection from good and evil.” She listed, they were good spells for a beginner, especially sleep.

“Wonderful Sweetie, but we can’t exactly try them without wasting them. So for now just memorize them all to perfection.” I said to her, she nodded and returned to reading her book.

“All done!” Scoot shouted and jumped down from the new cart landing on a scooter, the cart was made out of ripped off pieces of the larger wagon, the back wheels were larger then the front and miss matched, the back wheels were just ripped straight from the larger wagon the spokes making them go well past the wagons sides while the front sloped down on wheels made from the tops of food barrels. It was rough but looked sturdy enough. the scooter was similar it looked like the handlebars were made of wood and the stick connecting it to the bored was taken from the metal skeleton of the wagons canopy. The wheels were made from the same barrels as the charts front wheels.

“Wonderful, come on let’s move out!” I shouted pointing forward, and so we started our long journey to reach the nearest city. Along the way, they played with my old exoskeleton and Sweetie studied her book.

“Hey Tela?” Applebloom started. “You never told us anything about your parents. How are they?”

“Oh well, they are good they live in my hometown and sometimes comes to visit. Well I mean they won’t be able to visit me here but what can you do?” I told her shrugging.

“Don’t you miss them?” She asked tilting her head.

“Of course I do.” I replied softly. “But it’s not like I can do anything about it, so moping around won’t help. I prefer to laugh and move on.” I replied.

“I guess… And are they like you?” She asked then.

“What do you mean?” I asked raising an eyebrow.

“I mean are they all spidery like you?”

“Oh, well. No.” I told her. “You see, I was a human before, like those bandits we faced before. One day I was walking around town after my work shift and entered this strange store, inside I saw many incredible things but suddenly from a wall behind the counter another Drider exited destroying the wall, it attacked me and then the shopkeeper fired some magic at me and here I am.” Applebloom was staring at me disbelievingly same for Sweetie. “I was actually reborn because I came out of an egg not long ago, I adjusted just fine to the situation and learned how to use this new body which might I say it is far more efficient than a human one, at least I can climb far better.” I told them wiggling my legs.

“Incredible…” They said in awe. “So how old are you?”

“I’m actually 20, I’ll turn 21 this September, although I may not, I don’t know what day was when I hatched so meh.” I said. “Now if you excuse me I have work to do.” I told them and started to weave my silk.

“Wooow” Sweetie said.

“Pretty neat uh? She showed me that when we went out to take some fruit.” Applebloom recalled.

“How do you do that?” Sweetie asked.

“I was a scout girl and they taught me how.” I told them, and resumed my work.

“What are you making?” They asked.

I sighed. “I’m trying to improve my technic so I can weave faster and better, mostly I’m trying to make some… things.” I said.

“Ok?” They asked looking at each other.

“You go and play or something I’ll tell you when I’m done alright?” I told them, they nodded and started to play around with a ball of silk they asked me to create on the spot. We traveled for roughly six hours before I called for a break, Scoot can say whatever she wants but she was absolutely drenched in sweat.

We stopped near a little lake and all went inside to bathe and wash off the filth and sweat of the day, Scoot dared to go inside and then exit immediately, so I grabbed her by her torso and forcibly bathed her using a towel I made out of silk to scrub her filthy mane and coat.

Next were her wings which showed ample signs of needing a good preening, I gently started to pull off the broken and weak feathers, every time she squirmed I threatened her to stick her on the spot. Eventually, it was over and she appeared much cleaner than before, I even put a little bow on her head.

“Aww, look at her, such a wonderful princess.” I said jokingly.

The girls laughed at their friend misadventure while Scoot steamed with outrage and embarrassment. “What do I hear? ‘Tela please wash us too!’ Oh, but of course I wouldn’t dream of leaving you out.” I said to myself, and swiftly grabbed Applebloom and dragged her inside the lake.

She was fairly easier to wash and didn’t squirm as much, in a handful of minutes we were done and she was pristine. Sweetie Belle didn’t even have to be dragged she was already washing herself. “My sister says that a proper lady must always be clean.” Was her reasoning.

I shrugged and finally started to wash myself too, it required a bit of trial and error to find all the right part to wash but eventually I got around it, cleaning the abdomen though was a real pain, it was big and was difficult to reach especially the silk gland. Eventually, I managed to wash everything and happily exited the lake. “Now that was refreshing.” I said stepping out of the water.
.
“Ok, now can we go?” Scoot asked impatiently, I looked up and saw that the sun was going down, we remained still for longer than I thought, “No, we make camp now and continue tomorrow morning, let’s, camp girls!” I ordered, we started a fire, I ate my dinner and everyone was now around the fire.

“Ok, I call the first scary story of tonight. Who can make the others screams in fright wins.” I said with a maniacal grin. “So who wants to hear the terrifying story of the Flying Dutchman?”

And so I began my story, I told them of the infamous ship with its crew of undead pirates and that they will come to take them when they will die. “...and so the ship will arrive and claim your SOUL!” I shouted at last making scoot eep in fright and Applebloom run inside the cart. Sweetie though.

“I liked it.” She said clapping her hooves.

“Thank you. Now, who’s next?” I asked. Scoot gulped and said she didn’t have any story, same for the others. “Woohoo I won.”

Satisfied with my win I went to sleep on a tree and drifted off. I suddenly woke up, my senses in full alarm, ‘What was that? I swear I felt something moving, I saw it.’ I looked around and saw it, a single wolf. As big as the others that attacked us in the forest, it didn’t see me so I seized the opportunity.

It was creeping towards the cart where the girls were sleeping, I jumped and went over it then when I was upon it I grabbed it with my legs restraining it. “GIRLS! WAKE UP!” I shouted, I heard shuffling and frantic hoovesteps from the cart and the head of Sweetie came out looking around.

The wolf was kicking and squirming trying to push me off of it, I grabbed it with all my strength, “Sweetie now it’s a good time for those spells!” I shouted. I heard a twang and a crossbow bolt appeared in the wolf’s shoulder making it howl in pain, Then I saw Scoot reloading another bolt.

Sweetie was beginning her incantations while Applebloom took a sturdy looking branch from the almost spent fireplace and smashed it on the wolf face. I started to punch it but,when I saw that it was a little dazed I bit it in the neck.

I saw Sweetie’s horn shining with power and three ethereal projectiles came forth hitting the wolf square in the body, the wolf howled weakly, its heart started to beat slower and slower until it finally stopped.

“Done. Wonderful work girls, you were EPIC!” I said praising them for a job well done.

“Thanks, Tela,” Applebloom said. “What do we do with this now?” She asked.

“Let me take care of it.” I opened my mouth and consumed the whole body, I felt myself full once again and happily, I walked to the others.

"Alright girls, let's get some more sleep, we will continue in the morning," I said and returned back to my branch.

The next morning I woke up with the sun, I went down from my branch and started preparing breakfast for the girls. "Good morning." I said to them when they exited the cart.

"Good morning…" they yawned and went to eat their food, with the breakfast done we were almost ready to move on.

"Hey, scoot." I called her.

"Yes?" She replied looking at me.

"Are you ok?" I asked worried about any possible trauma from the recent attacks.

"I feel pretty good, why you ask?"

"I just asked cause ya know, attacking a wolf, almost being kidnapped…" I said

"Are you kidding? That was incredible!" She said happily and trotted off to her scooter. "Come on girls!"

"Coming!" They shouted, snuffing the fire and trotting to the cart hopping onto it. I went inside too and we continued our journey!

The journey under the sun turns out is horrible, it wasn't extremely hot, but it was still bothersome especially when you have a giant butt like me. A very sexy one mind you but not exactly a heat dissipator, the girls weren't fairing any better, they sweated and had their tongues out like a dog.

"Some heat uh?" I asked with a little laugh.

"Yeah… I'm melting help!" Sweetie shouted from the floor.

"It's not that hot." Scoot replied still pulling the cart.

"You are against the full force of that chill and refreshing wind," I told her.

"Uh, you can too? Just pull your head out." She said looking at us. I remained there for a bit. Then facepalmed hard, same for the others.

In the end we all laughed and finally found relief in the chill wind. Finally after two days of travel we finally arrived at the crest of a hill and saw before us a majestic city.

The city was at the foot of a mountain, it was completely circled by a giant wall with three roads leading to the entracces, the city was enormous, filled with houses, shops and schools, attached to the mountain there was a giant structure with many towers, coloured in a mighty white and with blue rooftops, the city below was buzzing with life and activity which reminded me of something.

"What are you doing?" Sweetie asked me.

"I'm making a top." I said sighing.

"What's that?" She asked.

"A piece of cloth to cover one chest, I don't like to wear those at all, if it was me I wouldn't even bother, but alas it is not "proper" to go without it so I must bear with it." I said disgruntled.

"Weird." Sweetie said.

"You said it girl."

"That city is really big." She continued.

"Sure is, look there are markets and shops, we can buy whatever we need there." I pointed out putting on my top and shivering into the sensation of restrain.

"Alright girls let's go introduce ourselves, to the city." I ordered, scoot kicked off and sped up to the city entrance. When we arrived at the door we saw just how big it was, the door was immense so much so it could make someone like me pass through ten times over.

"Halt." A guard said blocking us with a spear. "What are you carrying with you?"

"Uh, nothing too important, it is mostly for transportation." I replied.

"Sure thing Drider… let me check." The guard said snapping at me, which really didn't shock me.

The guard looked around but didn't find anything illegal and told us we could go in. "I'll keep an eye on you spider." He said to me.

"Well that was something." I told the girls.

"Sure was, can't we just do to him what we did to the bandits?" Scoot said.

"Unfortunately not, those were bandits this is a guard we will get in trouble." I replied. "Come on, don't let it get to you, look around we have a wonderful city to explore, let's go!"

Quest #3 A chance arrangement [EDITED]

View Online

“What is that thing doing here?” “It’s hideous, and what are those? Little horses?”

“They are probably its snacks. Quick collect the kids, it’s not safe out here.”

I caught a rock aimed to my head, so far the reactions of the citizens were… Not very nice, I think I received more death threats here then when I played on Xbox Live, and that’s saying something alright.

“Tela? Why are they saying those things?” Applebloom asked standing awkwardly under my abdomen with her two friends.

“Don’t listen to them AB they are just scared of things they don’t see often, they think I’m going to jump one of them and eat them.” I answered her.

“Can’t we just beat one up so they leave us alone?” Scootaloo asked.

“Absolutely not Scoot, that would just worsen things, listen in this situation violence is not the answer.” I reprimanded her.

“I heard my sister say that if violence doesn’t solve all your problems it means you are not using enough of it.” Sweetie said, I was going to reprimand her too when she added. “Or was that Pinkie?”

“Either way, yes it is technically the truth, only problem is we don’t have the strength to pull it off and you three wouldn’t even have the-.” I stopped myself, I was going into dangerous territory there, “Let’s just say that violence is not always the right way to do things. Defending from bandits? From wolves? Sure. But not now, not here.”

“Then what do we do?” Applebloom asked.

“We find a, sigh, shady old tavern that would accept my kind.” I said with a smirk, “If you are going to ask nicely I bet 99% of the girls in this town would gladly take you in.” I stated.

“You are joking right?” Sweetie said.

“Absolutely not, look at those dream struck eyes of the little girls at the windows eager to grab and cuddle you to death.” I said pointing around.

“They want to kill us!?” Applebloom exclaimed.

“Did the horse just talk?” “She’s a witch!” “She summoned them like demons! Someone call the guards!”

“Hmm, I diagnose this situation with going to shit.” I said and shot a web to the roof of a tall house and slinged myself up while scooping the girls in my arms.

“Wooo!” They shouted not expecting the motion. We landed on the roof and I quickly scurried away jumping easily from roof to roof until I arrived in a part of the town that was visibly less rich and frankly, a dump.

“What happened?” Scootaloo asked.

“They thought you were demons and they called for a mob to take my abdomen.” I explained putting them down.

“But that’s dumb!” She said.

I sighed. “People just don’t want something they can’t handle going around willy nilly, the problem is that I’m not like them. And believe me just a difference in colour is more than enough to make them tick so imagine having a completely different body.” I said.

“Like I said, dumb.” She said crossing her forelegs angrily.

“Come, I’ll bring you down to the ground, I think we are far enough.” I said making them climb on my abdomen once again, I descended the wall of the ruined home and returned them to the ground. Once there I looked around but as I was expecting the people were too distracted with finding a meal to freak out about me.

The streets were unkempt, the poor littered it like flies on a farm. But what really got my attention was a specific part of the district, there was a section that clearly showed that there was a door near yet no one crowded the streets. We continued our journey till we reached the giant door, the door had metal bars over it to keep it shut while the thick wood underneath survived the passage of time.

It was clear the barricade was old, tons of mold had formed on the it and rust over the iron. “This is so strange…” I said to myself.

“Why is the door closed?” Applebloom asked.

“Don’t know, maybe we could ask?” I offered, I went to a nearby human and asked him just that.

“That door is there to keep freaks like you out!” He replied smelling like alcohol and vomit. I couldn’t stand it so I quickly went away just in time to avoid the bottle he just threw at me. “And stay out!”

“Ok so, that’s where the freaks at.” I said to the girls, “Unfortunately we are freaks.”

“Awww.” Sweetie said lowering her head. I tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes.

“Don’t worry sweetie, you are not a freak for me, they don’t know what they are missing.” I said with a smile, this cheered her up a bit and nodded.

“Yeah we are cool!” Scootaloo said.

“Sure are!” With their spirits back on track we approached the gate, at first there was nothing particular or interesting in it, just wood and iron. But with a closer look I saw something in the shadow between the two gates, there was a figure of a lizard on two legs, it held a small pouch in his hand and waited.

I told the CMC to remain behind while I was going to talk to this guy, shady as he was he probably knew a lot of things.

“Hey.” I called him.

“Oh, who do we have here? A drider? What are you doing here cursed one?” He asked in a well spoken, even refined, english accent.

“I’m travelling with my three friends, we are lost.” I told him remaining vague.

“Oh, well then what do you want from me? But where are my manners... “ He bowed slightly. “I’m Krivroth Clecanendek.” He said.

“I’m Tela, it’s a pleasure to know you. You are not like the dirty and rude people I encountered so far.”

“Don’t be too hasty and severe my lady, they are scared and tired.” he said rather mysteriously.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let’s say that recent attacks and raids created a lot of attrition. But I’m sorry to inform you that if you wish to know more you’ll have to pay a little price.” he said motioning with his hand.

“I see… Let me guess, you are a member of what? A rogue guild?” I said.

“Well not exactly, we are the thief guild.” He said dismissing the phrase with a wave of his hand. “Still…”

“Yeah, yeah.” I said and gave him half the silver we took from those bandits.

“Five, six… Ok then I think you have paid enough, see this big gate? It’s used to keep the slums away from the rest of the city, you want something illegal it’s there. Want someone dead? You’ll find someone that will do that for you, of course for a price. Someone like you may be suited for such a job, I heard Drider have potent venoms in their bodies after all.”

“Thanks…” I said flatly. “Can we go through? We would like to find an inn or something.” I said.

“An inn? For a drider? Sorry lady but I don’t think you will find anything for you. Driders are quite feared and for good reasons.” He replied.

“You don’t seem scared.” I said with surprise.

“True” He shrugged. “But anyway, to go through one must either go down in the sewers or find a way to climb.” He said pointing at my legs.

“Hehe… thanks.” I said awkwardly remembering that I can actually just climb up on it.

“Was a pleasure to do business with you lady.” He said and returned to wait. I left him to his devices and returned to the CMC.

“Alright girls, we’ll have to climb this wall.” I said.

“But why?” Sweetie asked.

“We’ll have to find an inn or something for the night, then we start looking for jobs around, emphasis on WE. WE stay grouped, is that clear?” I said sternly, I didn’t want to be rude, but it’s extremely important we don’t get separated.

“Yes Tela.” They all said in unison.

“Good girls, now climb on and remember to not fall.” I said jokingly.

“They rolled their eyes but climbed on nonetheless. “Alright here we go.”

Just as I said that I started to climb up, and up until I reached the top of the wall and started descending.

“Hey I just realized…” Sweetie started. “We forgot the cart.”

I screeched to a halt, looked at her in the eyes.

“FUCK!”

“What’s fuck?” Applebloom asked.

‘Why do I have a sense of deja vu?’ “It’s nothing, it’s just a bad word adults use when they are angry.” I explained.

“Isn’t that also when you are making a baby?” Sweetie asked. I fell silent, I could hear my own heart beating in my chest.

“What?” I fearfully asked.

“I mean, I read in one of Rarity's romance book that when two adults wants to make a baby they fuck! It’s pretty easy too, you only have to put his d-”

“OK!” I shouted. “We are stopping here, no more out of you young miss, I’ll teach you when it’s proper to talk about such things later.” I said. “For now don’t you dare say anything more.”

“Yes Tela.” She said lowering her head.

“I still wanna know…” Applebloom whispered softly.

“I’ll explain later.” Sweetie whispered back.

I sighed and decided to just move on, they were going to learn about it regardless. Defeated, I returned to the ground and looked around, tall buildings were all but gone in this part of the city. The slums were filled with filth and dust, dozens of different races lived there varying from orcs to lizard people, we started looking around the ruined homes of many, and yet even with them having so little for themselves they were not aggressive or even too mad about it.

They went along their days with determination to survive, but still to help if someone needed it, the girls were treated like pets by many, they tried to give them carrots and sweets to make them come to their side. And for me, well…

“You better not be another deranged Drider stranger.” One orc said to me and returned inside his own home. ‘Well that was rude.’ I thought with a raised eyebrow, I shrugged and continued along the dirt road leading to the outskirts.

“Hey Tela look!” Sweetie said from my right, she was pointing at a fatiscente house, the windows were completely dark due to the dust and there were some traces of mold on the walls, the house was two stories tall and had a pitched roof covered with red tiles.

“What about it?” I asked confused.

“Well it says there that this is an inn!” She said pointing again to the building.

“Where the… Oh now I see it.” Indeed hidden under a lot of cobwebs and possibly years of dust there was a sign, “Jotun Blodbok” It read. “it seems abandoned though.” I said looking at the building once more.

“But there is one guy inside!” Scootaloo shouted watching from the window.

“uh…” I wisely concluded and moved to open the door, the handle screeched from the rust but held, I opened the door which fared a little bit better than the handle. The inside was basically the same as the outside, lots of dust and cobwebs, although there were lots of tables and chairs covered with white blankets. The inn was rectangular, the entrance immediately showed where people were supposed to eat, on the left there was a staircase leading upstairs while on the right side there was another staircase leading down. A bit further in, just passing the first row of tables was the bar, it held a variety of bottles and ingredient on the wall, the bar stretched through the whole length of the inn making it absolutely massive, and there with his back to us was a lonely person busy doing some kind of alchemy experiment.

“Hello?” I said trying to make him notice me.

“Oh hello there!” He said jovially, he turned around. He was a young man with a well kept beard, his hair was almost pearly white, his eyes were as black as the night just like his skin. He wore a seemingly comfy leather jacket with a pair of brown pants, at his wrists there were several bracelets jingling whenever he moved his hand, he also wore a necklace shaped like a coin with the symbol of the moon on it.

“Hi mister!” Applebloom said waving her leg, “Hi!” The other two said as well.

“Oh shit a talking horse!” He said completely throwing away his best behaviour.

“Oi!” I shouted. “No swearing in front of the children!” I said pointing a finger at him.

“Hear here now, you eight legged miss, this is my inn and so I can say whatever I want in it.” He replied crossing his arms.

“Fair, but still no swearing with them.” I said backing away a bit. “Are you perhaps a drow?” I asked after a bit.

“Oh whatever made you think that?” He said full of sarcasm. “Anyway what do you want?”

“We were looking for a place to stay for the night.” I replied.

“Uh, and you chose here, Why?” He asked suspicious.

“Well, seeing how the others outside treat me I thought no one would have even wanted to stay near me, and that’s fine by me, but the girls needs a place to stay so can you keep them in here?” I asked.

“Uh, sure.” He replied easily enough. “The bedrooms are on the upper floor, there is no one here so you can all have separate rooms for all I care, breakfast is at 0800 sharp, the basement only contain alchemical ingredients and alcohol. If you want any drink the bar is open.” He said and crouched down. “Yes,even you can even have something, I think I still have some milk somewhere.” He said and looked back at me. “The cost of all this luxury will be 5 copper coins at night.” He said.

I looked at my pursue and checked our finances. ‘Six silver coins, if they work like in D&D then we should have twelve days worth of payment, I guess we will have to search for a job soon. Or some treasure.’ “That’s fine, here.” I handed him the silver coin.

“Wonderful, now do you want anything from the bar or I can return to my affairs?” He asked pointing at the table behind the counter.

“What are you doing there mister?” Applebloom asked. “If you're making potions I can help! My friend Zecora showed me how to brew a few!” She said enthusiastically.

“Uh, sure why the hell not.” He said shrugging. I coughed at his obvious negligence of my request about swearing. “Oh yeah,” he said looking back at me, “The name’s Tenebris Plantae.” He said with a bow. “And you are?”

“My name is Tela Pellegrino, a pleasure.” I said.

“Truly? What a strange name.” He replied a bit confused.

“I’m not from around here.” I simply replied.

“Alright, come with me uh…” He said gesturing to Applebloom.

“Ah’m Applebloom.” She replied.

“I’m Sweetie Belle.”

“I’m Scootaloo.”

I put two fingers in my ears.

“And we are the CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS YAY!” I could hear them loud and clear.

“That’s fucking fantastic thanks for the deafening by the way.” Tenebris lamented. “Come Applebloom.”

“Alright girls go upstairs and choose a room.” I said softly. “I’ll reach you as soon as possible.”

“Yes Tela.” They diligently said in unison, while they were gone Applebloom started to go around trying to understand what Tenebris was concocting.

“So what were you doing Mr?” She asked curious. “Some kind of elixir of eternal youth?”

“Nah, something much better, Dragon Fire!” He proudly said showing a bottle full of an orangish liquid that swirled and moved like a flame inside the bottle.

“WOW can you breathe fire with it?” Applebloom said extremely excited.

“Why don’t you try it?” He said offering the bottle. I was starting to have some doubt about that bottle though, I kept myself near Applebloom, as soon as she opened the bottle I felt it. The absolute and inconfundible smell of…

“ALCOHOL!” I shouted and grasped the bottle away from Applebloom. “How dare you make her almost drink this?” I angrily asked him.

“Relax babe, it was just a prank. Now for the real deal come over here AB we have lots of potions to do.” He said with a smirk returning to his station. Applebloom nodded and followed him.

Night fell quickly and soon we were all in our rooms, the rooms were not that bad, they had a bed, a drawer and a carpet even. That being said the actual cleaning could have been a bit better. I wasn’t tired, it was probably midnight but still couldn’t sleep. I started to work some more on my silk, I tried to make it a bit more thick and resistant so that I could grab people with it as a sort of lasso or to trap them. After some hours I finally found the correct, uhm, way? Yes way to do it, I nodded to myself and started to create a nest on the ceiling when a sudden sound scared me. I turned around and saw a little pebble hit my window, making the same sound as before.

I approached the window and opened it, on the other side there was the same guy that gave us information at the gate. “We meet again.” He politely said with a bow. “A magnificent occurance I might say.” He said with honey in his voice.

“Hi, Krivroth, right?” I asked a bit unsure. He nodded and motioned for me to come down. I obliged and climbed down the wall. “Why the visit?”

“You see, my guild is interested in what you can do. Not many driders pass by here and many are against even talking to us, but you are different. What I propose is simple, there is this merchant a certain Napolos, this guy is a fierce competitor for our guild and unfortunately also deal with drugs, as you can imagine there is not much we can offer to top that. This is where you come into play, the doors of his mansion are magically locked and the windows are heavily surveilled, we can’t go in but you can.” He finished pointing a finger to me.

“Uh, let’s say I accept and kidnap this guy, kidnap right? Not killing.” I asked worried.

“Yes, we only need information, for the moment.” He said with a glint in his eyes.

“Ok let’s say I accept, what do I get from that?” I asked.

“Well, we can pay you in money, of course,” He said showing a bag full of golden coins, I just looked at it disinterested, I could use some gold sure. “But I see you want something different, so the higher ups said that you could join the guild if you successfully do the job, furthermore I will personally train you in the arts of the rogue.” he said showing off a dagger. “So what do you say?”

***

“Ok so the target is in there.” He said pointing to the tallest window on a three story tall house. The house, or better yet the estate was a fine looking building decorated like an ancient roman building, the place was filled with statues and ornaments used to show the wealth of the man who possessed them. We were right on the edge of the outer wall that circled the estate, my new friend and teacher was instructing me on what they knew of the house itself.

“The guards pass under the window every three minutes sharp, they always come from the right, once you are up there though you will be fine because they can’t see you in the dark. Go up there and enter, the window is always open so you shouldn’t have any problem going in. The target is alone in the room, if you find someone else inside dispose of them, try to not kill them though cause clearing corpses is very.” He gestured to me as to count money, “expensive.”

“Got it.” I said giving a thumb up. He nodded and returned inside a nearby shadow into the darkness… I could still clearly see him thanks to my night vision but still. I climbed on the wall and made my way behind a nearby fountain, I waited for a bit and when the patrol passed under the window I made my move, I quickly reached the wall and started to ascend. The light of the torches on the ground quickly gave way to the darkness and thanks to the absence of the moon, it was completely black, for them.

I reached the window and looked inside, Napolos was sleeping in his velvety bed, and unfortunately someone else was indeed in the room. Next to Napolos were two women, one of them an elf and the other a human, clearly something happened before I got here. ‘Fortunately I wasn’t here to witness…’ I said, Napolos wasn’t exactly the fittest of man and probably not the cleanest either.

That though could be a problem, ‘How do I take him without waking the other two?’ I started to think of a plan and suddenly remembered that my bite is venomous and had a paralyzing effect. I went near the bed which reeked with a pungent odor and bit the neck of the first woman while keeping her mouth shut with my hand, she obviously woke up but couldn’t make a sound and in seconds the venom finally took effect and I laid her on the floor her eyes open and terrified, unfortunately there wasn’t much I could have done there.

I did the same with the other one as well and then I bit Napolos too, he didn’t even woke up after I bit him. His muscles seized and locked up, I grabbed him with my hands while I slowly lifted myself on the ceiling with my silk, then I put him under me and started to cocoon him, after a minute I was done and had a wonderfully packed drug lord in my clutches. ‘Nice and wrapped just as I like.’ I said with a bit of humor. I climbed out of the window and without being seen I returned to where Krivroth was waiting for me.

“You did it!” He half shouted half whispered, “Wonderful my dear, come, I shall show you one to the guild.” We went around a normal looking house and ended up in an alley filled with crates and dust, he started to look around to see if anyone was there with us, nodding after his checking he whispered “Furta” and suddenly the crate disappeared leaving behind a large tunnel with a ladder inside. “Climb down.” He ordered, I nodded and went down, I had to remove Napolos from my back and keep him parallel to me in order to climb down, fortunately I didn’t have to use the actual ladder.

I arrived down in the sewers and looked around, the tunnel was big, a single torrent was coming from the left, we followed the stream and arrived later on in a gigantic area, the torrent was still going but here I saw boats floating around and in the middle of this chamber there was an entire citadel nested on a complex structure of stone pillars and bridges, the buildings were all connected by wooden passages, the docks were filled with activity. The people were not making any attempt to be silent or anything, we were too deep underground for that to be a problem.

“Welcome Tela to the Den.”

Quest #4 The circus!

View Online

“Welcome to the Den, here you can find anything you need if you have the money for it.” Krivroth said motioning me to follow him. The Den was a collection of bridges suspended mid-air and hundreds of stone alcove that littered the central spire, which was entirely made out of marble. There were dozens of wooden building hanging off from cliffs and seemingly defying gravity for how they were positioned, hundreds of people were going and coming even in the middle of the night.

“Come, we must reach the spire there. You can get rid of Napolos and get your reward. We may even have a new task if you are up for it.” He said, we started walking to the spire, I avoided to stare of people while Krivoth just saluted and greeted as we passed, when we arrived at the base of the spire I marveled at the design of the door that lead to the inner parts of the structure.

The door itself was made of pure black marble that shined in the light of the flickering torches, there were several intricate depictions all around the door none of them scratched by time. “Ok, put the guy here.” Krivoth said, pointing at the door. “I’ll take him inside now, you can’t enter yet.” He said seriously.

“Sure, sounds cool to me.” I knew that they couldn’t just let a complete stranger inside their base just like that, so I waited, in the meantime, I knitted some more making some vests for the girls, the holes for the wings were a bit tricky, but I managed. I stored the new jackets on my abdomen and stuck them to it with some more silk.

‘Krivoth is sure taking his time.’ I thought after even more time passed, I shrugged shot a web on the roof just above me and started to knit once more, this time I was making a jacket for Krivoth, I wanted to challenge myself and tried to make it as good looking as possible. Unfortunately some more time later the door opened and my work wasn’t finished yet. I put the jacket with the other vests and saw Krivoth exiting the spire.

“So?” I eagerly asked.

“You begin your trainer tomorrow night at 10:00 don’t be tardy. Also, we have a new job if you are interested, it’s a simple escort mission for a guy we are going to bust out of prison, your job is to bring him safely from the prison. You have three days to decide if you need them, good night.” He said and walked past me, vanishing into the crowd.

I returned to the inn in less than an hour, I wasn’t even tired when I climbed up the wall and returned to my room, so I finished knitting the jacket. Dawn came unexpectedly; I was more focused on the jacket than anything else. Aside from the fact that it was pearly white, it was very good in my opinion, it didn’t have buttons yet, so it couldn’t be closed, but I would buy them that same day. I yawned from the fatigue and went back to the web that I called a bed. “Buonanotte to me.” I murmured before sleep took me.

The banging on my door woke me up, I stretched and jumped down, feeling quite reinvigorated after my sleep, I went to the door and opened it. Sweetie Belle stopped her knocking and greeted me. “Good morning Tela!” She cheerfully said.

“Morning Sweetie, where are the others?” I asked.

“Scoot is still sleeping, and Applebloom is downstairs helping Tenebris.” She replied.

“Oh ok, hey Sweetie, did you find anything else in the book?” I asked, walking downstairs with her in tow.

“Well, I found some other spells, but they are so difficult I can’t even understand what they say most of the time, I tried to go further in the book, but it was utter gibberish.” She said with a hint of sadness.

“Don’t worry, I know you will be the best mage around.” I said, ruffling her mane.

“Hey, that’s not apple juice!” Applebloom scream came from the bar, she ran away in what I believe was the bathroom and started to wash her mouth.

“What happened?” I asked sternly.

“Oh, little Applebloom tried drinking some apple cider. The strong one.” Tenebris replied with a shrug holding a bottle.

“I told you to not give her alcohol!” I shouted.

“Hey, to be fair, she asked.” He said, laughing his ass off.

“Heeeeey Tela…” The mushed voice of Applebloom said from my right.

“Applebloom, you are drunk, go home.” Sweetie replied, concerned.

“Pft, I can’t go home, Sweet! We are stuck until Twily gets us all away from here with her maggggic shtuff. Ya know? That weird thing you do too, heeeey can you do a magic-” She face planted the ground and fell asleep.

“Ok.” I said.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA Oh my fucking gods!” Tenebris said, laughing like a maniac. “Did you see her all tipsy and barely being able to stand? I never saw a horse dance, but oh my gods am I proud of myself hahahahah!”

“Tenebris…” I said darkly. “You better return to your potions before I decide to make a snack out of you!” I threatened. ‘Hell did I just said what I said?’

“Ok, ok, sheesh, I just wanted to have a laugh calm your tits.” He said before going back behind the counter.

“Sigh, hey, Sweetie.” I said, making her lookup. “Can you bring Applebloom to her room, please?” I asked.

“Sure. Oh, Celestia she is heavy.” She said, struggling to keep herself up, bringing Applebloom upstairs. After some minutes I heard her little hooves coming downstairs, she huffed and weakly put a chair out from under the thick white blanket and hopped on it sighing.

“Hey, Sweetie who is Twilight?” I asked curiously.

“She is Princess Celestia’s student, she knows a lot of magic, so I’m sure she will be able to get us home.” Sweetie said confidently.

“Is she a unicorn-like you?” Tenebris asked.

“No, she was, but now she is an Alicorn like the Princesses.” Sweetie answered.

“An Alicorn?” I asked, confused by the term.

“An Alicorn is a pony with both wings and a horn!” Sweetie declared.

“Cool, cool.” Tenebris said, nodding. “Oh yeah, Tela.” He said, gesturing to me to come closer. “A, sinister figure left this here for you.” He said seriously. “He said you will know what to do with the information inside, do I have to worry about my inn being destroyed in the near future?”

“No, if he is who I think he is then the inn is safe, don’t worry about it.” I said, taking the letter and opening it. ‘Dear Tela, I talked with my boss for a bit, and he talked with one that knows a bit about magic, he said that he never saw something like your three friends there not here in this town or forest at least. If you want, we could arrange for you to have a private conversation with an expert in the magic academy. Of course, it comes with a small price, your collaboration in our future operation. If you agree to the terms, then you can tell me this night. Have a pleasant day.’ No signature, well, that was a bit expected. I crunched up the letter and let it rest in my closed fist.

“So?” Tenebris asked.

“Nothing.” I curtly replied. “Just a friendly letter that will come in hand, hey Sweetie go wake Scoot up we are going to explore the city a bit.” I said to her, at which she nodded and scurried off. “Hey, Tenebris, do you know where we can find a hunter guild?”

Sometime later, a grumpy Scootaloo, an excited Sweetie Belle, and I were going to the hunter guild in the city. Which I still don’t know the name of. At the end of the narrow street, we found our objective, a hulking building made out of stone with three floors loomed over us,
on the front in the highest place there was a flag, it had four horizontal stripes, blue, black, green and red. On the front, just over the main door, there was a metal plaque that reads “The Gorgon’s Eye.”

“I think this is it.” Sweetie said.

“You don’t say?” Scootaloo sarcastically said back.

“Girls, please.” I said calmly, “We are in the middle of the road, behave.”

“Yes, Tela.” Sweetie chirped.

“Ffffffine.”

We entered the building, it had a wooden floor that sparkled with how much it was cleaned, the room we arrived in sported a lot of tables and chairs in sets of four chairs and one table, some even had sofas instead. The important parts right now were, the mission board and the front desk, the clerk behind it upon seeing me tensed up quite a lot. “Wow, look at this place…” Sweetie said, mesmerized.

“Yup, it’s cool.” I confirmed with a nod and walked to the front desk. “Hello, I’m Tela, and these two are Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle.” I said, presenting them, both saluted jumping up and down to reach the tall counter.

“A… Pleasure?” He said, eyeing the two of them and especially me. “So how can I help you?”

“We would like to join your guild.” I said as a matter of fact.

“Sure, compile these and then come back to me.” He said giving us a paper each, I quickly looked at it, and the questions were all normal, name age etc… I put down the paper and caught the clerk staring rather intensely, and with a dreamlike expression at my breasts, he sure knew what good quality was, that’s for sure. I smirked and tightened my bra a bit more just to screw with him a bit, he noticed I was doing that on purpose and went red immediately while pulling his gaze away and onto some form on his desk.

We went to a nearby table and filled the form up nice and quickly, we then returned to the counter and put them on it. “Uhm, listen, I’m sorry…” The clerk said, ashamed and quite shyly.

“Worry not dear, I know I’m good looking after all.” I grinned, I didn’t mind his staring I was a nudist, after all, knowing that people are flustered and attracted by my body was the peak of my happiness.

“Eh, uhm uuuh.” He babbled completely shocked. I got back up and went to go out. “Y-you will receive a notification at your address when the guild decides when and if to make you join them, ma’am.” He said, stuttering a bit.

“Thanks, dear.” I said, and left the building.

“Why were you talking weird before?” Sweetie asked.

“Oh dear, when you are older, yours truly will teach you how to mess with people, but for now, enjoy being a kid.” I said as we went back to the inn. We arrived watching Applebloom outside with a bucket of paint and a brush in her mouth, painting the wall on the front.

“Applebloom? What are you doing?” I asked.

“Oh, hi, Tela. Tenebris told me that if I painted the front wall, he would give me a gift!” She said enthusiastically.

“Oh, uhm, I’ll talk with him just to check, you know?” I said.

“Applebloom, I think you got fucked by him.” Scootaloo said at my utmost horror.

“Scootaloo!” I shouted, looking at her. She jumped in fright and covered behind Sweetie. “I don’t want to hear you say something like that again! Am I clear?” I said, clearly angered.

“Yes, Tela…” She said with a whisper.

I calmed down, lowered down, and took her in my arms. “Scoot, I know you didn’t mean what you said, but please don’t say it anymore ok?” I asked softly.

“Ok…” She said, snuggling my arms and chest.

I hugged her back a bit then put her down. “Alright now, let me go talk with Tenebris ok?” I said, they nodded and decided to remain outside to paint together, where did they find the brushes? Hell if I know.

I opened the door and saw that the inn was actually not empty; there were some people inside drinking and smoking. I went to the counter, ignoring the stares the customers were giving me. “Tenebris?” I asked.

“Yes?” He curtly said while serving another customer.

“What happened? This morning it was all empty.” I said with amazement.

“These guys all came here after you exited, they said a friend told them to come here. I can’t certainly say I’m contrary to that.” He said, smiling and pouring more drinks around.

“Well, good for you?” I said.

“Hey.” A man said, handing me something, it was a little piece of paper. I took it thanking the man and opened it.

‘You are welcome.’ It read, I knew exactly who I had to thank for this. “Oi Tenebris, do you know any attractions around the city?” I asked.

“There is a Circus in the first district. The entrance costs two silver coins, but people say it is good.” He replied, busy with his work. Intrigued, I went out and asked the girls if they liked the idea. They all loved the idea and started painting faster to get there quicker. In less than 2 hours they were done, and right on time, it seemed the sun was barely above the horizon.

“Come on, girls, we have to hurry.” I said to the exhausted fillies, even with my help, they were still tired from the work.

“I can’t walk.” Sweetie lamented.

“Come on, Sweet, it wasn’t that hard.” Applebloom replied no worse for wear.

“coming from the one that works on a farm…” Scoot said panting.

I lowered down and took the three of them up in my arms, then I put them on my abdomen, “Come on, I’ll carry you.” I said softly. I carried them through the slums climbing walls and jumping roofs, we later arrived at the first district and immediately noticed the big red tent that surely was of the circus. We approached the entrance, and incredibly, the clerk at the ticket booth didn’t have a negative reaction to me, something that I was expecting after last time. We entered eager to see the show, the rows were full of dreaming spectators and joyful children. We sit down, well they sit down I just put my legs under me and watched the show.

Hours passed, but in the end, the show closed up, we saw hundreds of magical spells and incredible new creatures, the girls were amazed, and their happy faces were contagious. “Hey, Tela, before the show ends, can we go and get some cotton candy?” Sweetie asked pleadingly.

I looked around and saw that the cotton candy stall was not far from us. “Of course.” I replied, handing them some silver coins.

“Thanks.” They shouted and trotted off.

SWEETIE BELLE POV

The girls and I were eager to buy some cotton candy, I can’t believe how fantastic the show was. “This circus sure is great,” I said.

“Sure is.” Scootaloo agreed. “Did you see that weird monster made out of fire? So cool…”

“Yup, I liked it when the weird plant lady appeared and grew a tree from nothing.” Applebloom commented.

“Hey, do you want some cotton candy?” Someone asked from behind me.

“Sure!” I said, looking back.

“Well, then you must come with me; the sellers are all outside.” The weird ‘Man?’ said.

“Wait.” I said, “The vendor is right there.” I pointed to the stall with a line in front of it.

“Well yeah, but he will finish the cotton candy soon, he told me so, come on the candy will be outside.” He said motioning us to follow him. We shared a look but decided to follow him outside, I heard someone whispering something in the dark and then a sudden pain before nothing.

TELA POV

“They sure are taking their time.” I said, wondering where they were. I was watching them when a guy bumped into me spilling his drink all over me, he apologized a lot but still. ‘I’ll have to make a new one, I don’t think you can wash raw silk.’ I thought.

“That is all for today, ladies and gentlemen.” The announcer said bowing, the circus erupted in cheers, and coins went flying, but I still couldn’t find the girls.

‘Where are they?’ I said starting to panic I looked around but couldn’t find them anywhere, I stood up to my full eight and still nothing. I hastily went around asking if someone has seen them, again, no luck. In a frenzy, I exited the tent and started to look around frantically, I was livid with myself. How could I have done such an irresponsible thing! “You fucking idiot!” I shouted, punching a nearby wall drawing blood and maybe breaking my hand in the process. I wanted to cry so hard, but tears had to wait, I had to find them.

SWEETIE POV

My head hurts, my stomach hurts, and my everything hurts. I managed to open my eyes briefly to look around, we were all in a cage, it was dark and damp. A lone torch hanged on a wall and granted us some light. “G-girls…” I said weakly, I heard something wet on my head, I reached out and saw blood. “G-g-girls!” I said, still weak and now scared.

“S-sweetie?” Applebloom called weakly from her cage, finally waking up, she stirred up a bit, and when she noticed the bars, she immediately panicked. “Sweetie? Where are we?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” I said frightened, the room where we were held was barren and made out of stone, there were traces of rats on the floor, and the place reeked like it was old and abandoned. “Is Scoot up?”

“Almost, she is opening her eyes.” AB said. “Hey, Scoot. You alright?” I heard her ask.

I looked at the cage door and noticed the sturdy-looking lock. ‘No way I can break that… Maybe Applebloom?’ I thought. Before I could voice my idea, we heard steps coming towards us. We saw the same guy from before, he was smiling like a lunatic.

“Oh, you are awake then? Good, good.” He said his hands in his pants. “now let me just explain your situation, you are weird-looking creatures thousands will pay to see you, and I will be there to collect everything…” He said, rubbing his hands.

“When Tela finds out, you will be sorry!” Applebloom said.

“Is Tela that Drider? She doesn’t know you are here, nobody does, nobody will.” He said, cackling.

“She will save us!” I shouted.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.” He said, now unamused. “Toll, Lork take them to the mage room; he will break them for us nicely.” He said, immediately from the shadows, three men showed up holding collars and whips.

“Of course, boss.” The middle one said, he was wearing a jacket, a pair of pants and he had a bandana on his face, the other two were wearing the same, the middle man had a small beard black as night, the other two had a bald head but a long blonde and red beard respectively.

“Handle them nicely, I don’t want to spend money on healing them up.” The boss said, leaving the room.

“You heard him, let’s take them.” The middle man said. The other two nodded and crouching down and opened the cages. In an instant, Scootaloo headbutted the blonde one knocking him away. Applebloom kicked the cage open, slamming it in the face of the black-bearded man, possibly breaking his nose, I cast firebolt and hit the red-bearded man in the face burning away a bit of his beard.

“Damn it!” The black beard shouted in pain. “Catch them!” He ordered the other two. A hand came for me, but I quickly sidestepped and cast another firebolt, this time I hit him in the chest he screamed in pain and fell. He was still breathing, I’m sure.

Applebloom got caught by the black-bearded man, but immediately she bit him making him let go, she spun around and bucked him right in the groin, I cringed, I don’t have male bits, but I read enough to know that a blow like that hurts a lot. The man lost consciousness immediately after slamming his face on the cold floor.

Scoot didn’t even let the blond man stand up. She was immediately on his stomach, punching him repeatedly in the face until he stopped moving. She had a lot of blood on her hooves.

“Ok,” I started. “We need to get out of here.”

“Scoot, are you ok? You are shaking.” Applebloom said, worriedly.

“Ok?” Scootaloo asked. “I’m ok, alright.” She said, pumping her hoof. “Did you see how I knocked him down ?” She said, still trembling but smiling.

“Are you sure?” I calmly said.

“Yeah yeah, let’s just get out of here.”

“Fine.” I said defeated, I looked around and saw a small light coming from further down the room, “There’s a door there.” I pointed. I lit my horn and motioned for them to follow me. We quietly reached the door and pried it open, the hallway that we found was made out of stone with torches, on the right side there was a right turn while on the left there was another right turn.

“Where to?” I asked the others.

“I dunno Sweetie, should we throw a coin?” Applebloom asked.

“We don’t have one.” Scootaloo deadpanned. “I say we go left then right.” She proposed motioning forward.

“Nothing wrong in trying, I guess.” I said and trotted to the left, the others following me, we reached the turn, and I stopped them. I peeked around and saw that there was no one. “Fantastic.’ We continued down the corridor until we heard the sound of footsteps from behind us, we turned around and saw two guards, one held a hammer and a shield while the other had a crossbow and a spear.

“Fugitives!” They shouted and ran towards us. We scattered immediately, I took the rear while Applebloom went forward to meet the two men, Scootaloo quickly shot forward and rammed her head in the crossbow user knocking him back. Applebloom instead narrowly missed a heavy slam of the guard’s hammer and retaliated with a powerful buck to the man’s ankles, he screamed in pain but remained standing until my firebolt hit him right in the chest knocking him down.

Scootaloo avoided the rapid attacks of the spear holding guard, and when she saw that the man took a step too far she took the opportunity to attack, she jumped up, using her wings she reached the man height, she then punched him in the throat knocking him down as well.

“Ok, their shouts must have alerted somepony else, we have to go.” I said to the others, Scootaloo though refused and told us to wait for a second, she pushed the guard making him roll on his chest and took the bolts for the crossbow, she then leaned down and took the weapon as well.

“It is not very easy to use, but it will do.” She said, eyeing the weapon looking around. Applebloom took the shield from the passed out guard and strapped it on her foreleg.

“It might be helpful, ya know?” She said, trying to walk a bit with it to get the right feeling for it when she was satisfied. She nodded, ready to continue. “Hey, girls.” Scootaloo shouted.

We came near her and saw her flashing out two potions, one was cherry red-colored while the others held a yellow liquid. “What is this?” She asked, looking them over.

“That one is filled with acid.” Applebloom said immediately. “The other hmm, let me see.” She said and took the vial, she opened the vial and took a quick sniff. “This is a healing potion, good find.” She said, smiling and giving it back to scoot. She immediately refused.

“Keep them, you know how to use them better than me.

“Alright, now we really have to go.” I said, a bit annoyed. They smiled and followed behind me, the hallway was clear and silent, it went on for a bit before arriving at what looked like an arena. The floor was made out of sand, and all the lights were off. We cautiously moved forward, but then we heard a shout from above us, we scattered, and a big hulking body crashed down on the sand, the lights went on immediately, and a giant green human looked at us unamused.

“You are the attractions here! Nobody comes in and then gets out alive!” He shouted, spitting all over the place in a guttural and raspy voice. The green man was big, much bigger than the others, he wore half armor made out of metal and had a giant axe clutched in his gigantic hands. “I was gonna sell you lot, but if you want out so bad, I’ll help you leave in pieces.

The green man was caught by surprise as a bolt from Scootaloo’s crossbow embedded itself in his shoulder, drawing blood. Immediately after that, Applebloom did a heavy blow with her shield on his leg, making him kneel. I took aim and fired another firebolt at him, only scorching his pauldron.

“You are going to pay for that!” He shouted in a fury, he stood up and swung his axe towards Applebloom who narrowly parried the blow with her shield, still she was launched a good three meters away from the strength of the blow. “Applebloom!” I shouted, I gritted my teeth and fired another firebolt. This time I hit him in the back of his head, and he cried in pain.

Then another bolt found its mark in his arm. He grabbed it and ripped the bolt out, the wound spewing blood and meat. That was disgusting. I kept my stomach under control and focused, we didn’t have time to feel disgusted. “Now, I’m angry, and you’re gonna will wish you stayed in the cages!” He shouted, with a primal roar, his right arm grew a nasty-looking green tentacle with a hook at the end, it was very long. “DIE!”

I saw the tentacle almost hit me right in the face, but then Scootaloo pushed me away, she got hit by the tentacle and screamed in pain from the sting. She clutched her head as she collapsed. “You monster!” I shouted absolutely distraught and livid. I narrowed my eyes and summoned a skeletal hand that grabbed his arm, making him howl in pain, trying to pry it off, the hand disappeared after a second, and he immediately rushed towards me. Applebloom was right behind him, she jumped striking him on the back with her shield, that actually hurt him, he angrily shouted spitting out blood and rained a flurry of blows on Applebloom’s shield.

“Sweetie!” She shouted. “Make her drink this!” She said, still pinned under the terrifying blows of the man, she put the red vial down and kicked it towards me. I grabbed it with my telekinesis and made Scootaloo drink it, she stopped shivering immediately, and the wound on her flank disappeared.

“Thanks.” She whispered and immediately took aim with her crossbow, Applebloom sidestepped the incoming bolt and went behind the man, I tried to summon a new spell I learned this morning, it was cruel and just what he deserved.

The dart was fired and hit right in his eye, Applebloom took a bit of sand and put it in the acid potion, she shook it and then threw it. The flask broke on the man’s skin and immediately started to sizzle with the sound of burning flesh and corroding fumes, and I whispered, no, I almost sung.

“Toll the dead.” A sound of a tortured bell rang through the arena, the man put his hands on his ears and screamed in pain, from his eyes and mouth came forth a wave of blood that painted him red, he kneeled down and gurgled something that we didn’t understand then he collapsed in a growing puddle of blood-forming right under him. At that instant, without even having the time to blink, an incredible feeling took me, and the world went white.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw the others staring at me and I at them. “You’ve got a cutie mark!” we all shouted in unison.

“I’ve got a cutie mark?” We shouted again asking for confirmation, we all nodded and looked back at our cutie mark, mine was of a shield with a lavender star in it, on the star there was an eighth note, the note head was replaced with a skull, the shield was colored with our mane colors in three stripes. Applebloom’s cutie mark was of two potions inside the same shield as me, the potions mixed together to create a third apple-shaped potion. Scootaloo’s mark also had a shield for a background, but hers had two crossbow arms sticking out of the sides, a single arrow was in the middle it with two wings flanking it, inside of each wing there was a small thunderbolt.

We gazed at them for what we thought were hours before we returned to our senses, I looked around, the green man now cold corpse was still there. “Girls, he’s dead,” I said with a bit of dread but not as much as I thought I would.

“Right, he is!” Scootaloo said, kicking the man’s arm. “He hurt me a lot and probably hurt a lot of other ponies too.” She said, not fazed by the death of the man.

“I mean, it was him or us but I… I don't know .”applebloom said dazed and unsure.

“Alright, alright, he was terrible." I said confirming what Scootaloo said while trying to not let Applebloom feel guilty. "Now come on, we need to find a way out. We went across the arena and found an exit, we followed the path up to a door and opened it, inside we found three corpses, they were bloody and full of cuts, we heard a whimper over us, and we saw a man hanging inside of a cocoon trying to break free. “Oh no, you don’t get out unless you tell me where my girls are, you cock sucking slaver!” I heard a very recognizable voice saying. Tela was on the ceiling, looking the guy in the eyes.

“TELA!” We shouted with glee.

“GIRLS!” She shouted right back, noticing us, She jumped down and hugged us, her hands were stained with blood, but we didn’t care, she found us, she was going to save us. We were just so relieved for that ordeal to be over that we passed out.

Christmas Quest! [EDITED]

View Online

Even after what happened yesterday, the girls seem fine. They are still eager to go on adventures. If anything happened to them, I would have never forgiven myself. It was my own fault that they got kidnapped in the first place, so I swore to be there for them and check where they go.

“Hey, Tela.” Sweetie said, snapping me from my thoughts, we were in her room where she was showing me some of her spells, “A letter just arrived.”

“A letter?” I asked, confused; I didn’t see any this morning.

“Yep, this owl brought one.” She said, pointing at it, the owl was big, with brown feathers and a little red stripe on its right leg.

“Uh, what does the letter say?” I asked.

“It says that your encounter with HIM, the word is in all capitals, is postponed to the day after tomorrow. Also, the date we visit the school is in three days.” She said.

“Uhm, very well then.” I said, accepting it, not that I could do anything else. “So what-”

“Hey, Tela!” Scoot shouted, barging in through the door with a letter in her wing. “A letter!”

“Oh, thank you Scootaloo, let’s see here.”

“Dear Tela Pellegrino, we hereby accept your request to join the Gorgon Eye, we have also enclosed a contract that you can accept as your first assignment, the full reward will be yours as this mission only requires one team. Good luck.”

“Head hunter: Rockfoot Rootbeard.” I read the final part. I looked inside the envelope to find another piece of paper.

“Ok, says here that there are little fey going around causing all kinds of problems in a farm not too far from here, the pay is two silver and four copper coins.” I said.

“Not much…” Scootaloo said.

“Yes, but those are farmers, they don’t usually have a lot.” I replied. “What do you say, would you like to go?”

“Sure!” Scootaloo said, excited.

“Sure, I can test a few new spells.” Sweetie said, rushing off to prepare her grimoire.

“I’ll go ask Applebloom. She is making something in her room.” Scootaloo said, taking off.

“Ok, while she does that, I’ll go warn Tenebris.” I said, and walked downstairs. The inn was as busy as the night before, and Tenebris was genuinely happy for it. “Hey, Tenebris, the girls and I are going out on an adventure today. Don’t wait up.” I said with a little wink.

“Hey, sure, but… Listen.” He said, pulling me away. “I’m sorry about the circus, it was my idea, and the girls got kidnapped because of it.” He said low enough not to be heard.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault.” I said with a little smile.

“Alright… Now fuck off!” He said at first low and then shouting with a smile.

I smiled too and went out waiting for the girls. I grimaced and held a hand out to block the sun. I am starting to realize how why I stick to shadows during the day. My new night vision makes it harder to see in direct sunlight. ‘I should buy a pair of sunglasses…’

My thoughts being clear on what to buy next. The girls came out in a few minutes, and we were all ready to go. “Hey, Tela.” Sweetie started. “How did you know where we were?”

“A guy helped me.” I replied vaguely. “And before you ask yes, he helped with your book too.” The book was still on the cart when we lost it, but fortunately, one can retrieve anything for the right price.

“Ok…” She said, not happy with the answers.

“Cheer up, Sweetie, we are going on an adventure!” Applebloom told her, holding her shield.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome!” Scoot said, pointing her crossbow around.

“Alright, alright, sheesh.” Sweetie said, rolling her eyes, she then mounted on me, and we took off.

The farm wasn’t too distant, barely an hour of walking from where we were, up from the road we could already see some damage done to the farm, most of the animals were running around scared, and the farmers were trying effortlessly to calm them down. We came near and asked what was going on exactly.

“And who are you?” The farmer asked.

“We are from the Gorgon Eye.” I replied, showing the letter, he snatched it from my hands and looked it over.

“Fine, we have some strange fey causing all kind of havoc around here, if you can get rid of them, I’ll pay you.” He said, handing back the letter. “They only come out at night, so you will have to wait. In the meantime, my family and I will spend the night at my friend’s place.” He said, eyeing us suspiciously.

“Alright, sure, come on girls.” I said.

“What are those?” The farmer asked, finally noticing the girls.

“My girls, now excuse me, but we have a job to do.” I said, wanting to cut it short.

“So, what’s the plan?” Applebloom asked.

“We see what they are first, then we decide.” I told them, caution before action was always a good idea. We then waited until night fell, we went along trying to come up with possible plans to deal with whatever they were, if all the farmers were unhurt then they weren’t exactly dangerous or, at least they haven’t felt threatened enough by the farmers to attack back. When the sun finally came down, we went to work.

We entered the farmhouse and were greeted by eight little creatures, they were shouting and running around, some were licking pans, and some were slamming doors. They saw us, and they watched us for a bit before resuming their vandalism, “So, ideas?”

“We, uh… Scare them off?” Sweetie suggested.

“Yeah, I guess they are not dangerous at all. Come here, you little mongrels!” I shouted and ran to them, they scattered, running away in all different directions, some tried to hide behind the table and some in the cabinet, the girls scattered as well trying to make them run towards the exit.

“YEE-HAW! Just like Applejack!” Applebloom shouted, giggling, rounding three of them up before moving to the exit.

“This is hard how do you make them go where you want? STOP MOVING!” Scootaloo said, pissed and stressed out by the little fey continually running back into the house. “UGH!”

“Don’t be like that Scoot; this is fun!” Sweetie said, chasing around one with her horn shining with light. Eventually, we chased them all out of the house, where they then ran off into the nearby woods and disappeared.

“That was the last of them.” I said happy to be done with the little creatures, they were all gone, and we went to work in the house fixing all the damages they have caused, It took hours but we didn't want the farmer to blame us or dock our pay, because we had to throw them into a few walls to get them out. When we exited the house the area was covered in mist. There was a silhouette in the middle of the road coming closer to the house. After a moment the figure came into view. It was a tall monstrous creature with long curled goat horns and pitch-black fur. he had a basket strapped to it's back with a cloth cover, stitched into the rim allowing it to close like a bag. he was holding a bindle of Burch sticks in its right hand and a metal chain in the other, he had a long red tongue sticking out of his mouth that swayed like a snake's.

“Look what I have found, Naughty children.” He said with a thick, raged voice. Immediately he shot forward ward and tackled me on the ground pushing me into it with incredible speed. He smacked my abdomen with the birch branches. I cried out in pain from the sting of it and tried to punch him off me but he didn’t even flinch.

The girls all tried to attack him as well but their attacks didn't seem to affect him. “Naughty, naughty!” He told us, he whipped his chain around and hit all of them knocking them to the ground with blood on their muzzles.

The “fight” If you even can call that went on for hours, us trying to get him off whoever he decided to beat at the time We all worked together but he just focused at us one at a time as our attacks glanced off his coat, he never tried to take us down or beat us unconscious. This was pure sadism and he knew how to hurt us just enough to keep us awake and unable to pass out from it. It was hard for me and I couldn’t imagine how it was for the girls. At some point, by sheer luck, Scootaloo managed to fire a bolt that hit him right in the eye pouring out a lot of blood.

“You!” He roared with fury putting the bundle away and using the chain with both his hands, he reared back and hit Scootaloo in the chest with it making her fly into the air, she hit the ground with a sound of broken bones and a painful whimper, Sweetie used her magic to summon three magic dart that hit him in the breaking a strap and making his basket fall down on the ground, without even breaking a sweat he spun around and hit her in the face breaking her jaw.

I darted forward and tried to pry the chain away from him, he shrugged me away like nothing and hit me in the abdomen, I didn’t have bones there but the cracks on my exoskeleton were enough to make me flinch in pain. Applebloom went in front of me and rose her little shield from a second hit of the chain, she tanked it well enough until the monster tore the shield away and hit her in the flank making her stumble. She almost recovered when a second hit sent her rolling on the dirt, eventually stopping when she slammed against the farm wall.

I stood up once again and tried to fight him failing horribly, the monster lashed out at me again and I shielded myself with my right arm hearing it break and bend under the strength of the blow, The chain whip didn't stop and went flying past me, killing a sheep that was hiding near a hay bale, killing it instantly, I looked around and the girls were all still on the ground groaning in pain, I clenched my fist and gritted my teeth with seething anger, I screamed at the heavens and absorbed the sheep, I regenerated my arm but I needed it to be stronger and more durable. It did, it became harder and more powerful than before.

The glimmering and shiny substance was black as onyx and reflected a bit of light, a fourth hit aimed for me and I shielded it with my new arm, this time the arm held and the chain was completely deflected stunning the monster. I seized the opportunity and lashed out with my new armored arm and punched him in the face I dropped down avoiding a second lash of his chani and went back up with an uppercut.

The monster though didn’t feel it much at all and actually grabbed my neck and squeezed it hard almost making me pass out. It was then that the sun finally came out, the monster looked at it and scowled, he angrily pointed at me his eyes flashing red. “This is not over…” He whispered menacingly disappearing in thin snowy mist leaving only the bag behind. I weakly stood up and took the girls in my arms, slowly but surely returned to the city dragging the monster's bag with me.

Quest #5 Eyeng monsters

View Online

A week passed after our encounter with the Krampus; the girls recovered fairly quickly thanks to healing potions and lots of rest. Although the encounter was possibly the worst we have ever had, they stood firm. As for myself, the wounds I got were not that grave, so I grit my teeth and carried on, the guild, fortunately, came to check on me and told me that the plan they were making got disrupted by the capture of their spy, so all activities regarding that had to be postponed.

It was my eighth day resting when I heard a familiar tick tick from my window. I looked out and let the raven in; it had a message tied to its leg. ‘Tonight, at the Den.’ I ripped the paper in half and burned it in a nearby candle. I decided to step downstairs and check to if the girls were there.

“I raise!” Sweetie shouted confidently, putting more coins on an already big pile of coins, strips of leather, and skulls of various animals.

“Bullshit! I call!” A big gruff man said, looking with absolute focus at his own two cards tightly held in his hands.

“Call!” Sweetie replied. The third man at the table, a young man with a light short beard, nodded and put another card onto the table alongside four more.

“Triple ace!” Sweetie shouted happily.

“Fuuuck!” The man shouted his hands over his face. “Alright, a deal’s a deal.” He said quietly and put a bag full of coins on the table.

“Come back anytime!” She said, waving.

“Fuck you, you, fucking horse, narwhal thing.” He bitterly spat out.

“Who was that?” I asked Sweetie when I got near her.

“A guy who wanted to play some card game. It was really fun.” She said, picking up winnings scattered on the table. By the time she finished, the dealer had gone away without a word.

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Scoot is outside; she is getting some practice with her crossbow. Applebloom is in the basement doing her experiments, Tenebris sold that weird, gross whip and got us a lot of money.” She explained, sitting down on her chair once again.

“I see, well do you still want to learn how to knit?” I asked her. She immediately beamed.

“Yes!” She said, hopping down and trotting upstairs. I chuckled to myself and followed her.

When night fell, I tucked the girls in and waited for the people in the bar to finally go home so I could sneak to the Den. There I found Krivroth waiting for me.

“Hello, Tela.” He greeted me with a bow.

“Hi Krivroth, so what’s the job?” I asked him; he didn’t answer right away; instead, he motioned for me to follow him.

“Not here, we must find a safer spot to talk.” We entered what I assumed was his house; it was a tower two stories high, there were some grappling points scattered around the exterior, the majority leading to the windows. He opened the wooden door and let me in.

The interior was finely decorated with statues and gold. There was a desk in the middle of the room covered in papers, daggers, and gold coins. “Alright, so,” He started, “We have a VIP inside the Ironshakle prison, we sent a spy there to get him out, but he got caught.” I nodded. “Now, we sent another one, and this one did his did and let us know he could prepare a jailbreak two days from now.”

“Do I have to help with that?” I asked. He shook his head.

“No, your job is to escort this VIP back here in one piece, your night vision and wall walking will be perfect for the job, you go there, grab the VIP and come back here.” He finished handing me a map.

“So, how about payment?” I told him, folding the map and tucking it in my bag.

“Payment is talking with someone high up at the magical academy, do this, and you will have his complete attention for the day.” He said, then he got a bit darker. “Be aware, though, we heard that there are some problems in the sewers, be wary of thugs unaligned with the guild.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.” I told him and walked to the door.

“Hey,” He called. I looked back at him. “Good luck.”

I returned to my room and drifted to sleep. The next day the girls and I were excited, we were going to finally tour the magical academy. “Do you think they will be able to teleport us home?” Sweetie asked.

“I don’t know, we will see.” I replied, ruffling her mane.

“Do ya think they will let me tinker with their stuff?” Applebloom asked, tucking away a vial full of something.

“Probably?” I said with a shrug.

“I bet they have magic so powerful it can even call meteors down from the sky! That would be so cool!” Scootaloo said, hopping up and down on my abdomen.

“Nah, that’s just not possible.” Sweetie replied to her.

“What are you a handbook?” Scootaloo snarked back.

Sweetie started playing with her hair while muttering, “I would be a wonderful handbook…”

“Okay, girls, settle down, we are almost there.” I pointed to the mountain the academy was nested on. The mountain itself was incredibly tall, almost reaching the clouds in the sky with a flat peak. With a building was built on top. It had a giant clock on the tallest tower so big it could be seen from anywhere in the city.

“It’s big! What is that!?” Applebloom shouted, pointing to a weird train suspended in the air by electric arcs, it went around the mountain and stopped at the top then after a minute or so came back down.

“I don’t know.” I said, I honestly, it was similar to a train, yes, but how it operated was a mystery to me. “Guess we’ll find out though, it seems to be the only way up.”

“YAY!” Applebloom, well, yayed.

We came near what I would have described as a train station. There were hundreds of people coming and going while dozens of guards stood around, the main building of this train station was an almost modern looking one, it had a clock over it and sliding glass doors, we went inside and approached the main desk. Serving us was an automaton with a symbol of lightning coiled around a mage wand.

“Greetings.” It said simply.

“We are here to visit the academy, how does this work exactly?” I asked.

“The Thunder rail will bring you up the mountain if you have the ticket.” I answered, methodically, and without hiccups.

“Okay… Where do we get a ticket?” Sweetie asked.

“Here.” It replied.

“Can we have one?” I asked.

“It will cost five silver or ten gold for a yearly pass.” It answered.

“A bit costly, but fine, here.” I told it and handed over the ten coins. It counted them all and then handed one ticket to me.

“It is good for you and your children.” It said.

“They are not- oh, it doesn’t matter.” I said, defeated, and grabbed the ticket. We then moved to the binary and waited. The ground was covered with pyramid-like metal tracks. After a minute or so, we heard the arrival of the train. The pyramid structures lit up with thunderous power and kept the train hovering through pure electrical current. We embarked on the train when the door opened and immediately after we took a seat.

The girls shouted with glee at seeing the scenery pass with such speed, and for the excitement of being inside a machine they have never seen before, we saw a floating island hidden behind the mountain, it was full of lush vegetation and tall trees. Alongside it, we also saw a massive building abuzz with the activity of hundreds of people.

The second thing we saw while traveling up were three towers connected by a wall. They were dark red and had black clouds hanging over them. After that, we saw a beautiful church with impressive colored glass windows and a magnificent rose window. The whole church was densely covered with statues that gave it a solid gothic look.

We exited the train and were greeted by the immense construction we saw from the base. Up close, it was even more intimidating; the main building was right on the top. Right next to it, there was a tower, gargantuan in size with dozens of statues adorning it. It was filled with people, all of them different; it was like seeing a kaleidoscope of the Populus.

“Wow” The girls breathed out, looking all around.

“Hey, you are a unicorn!” A girl said suddenly coming from the right, she had blonde hair with azure eyes, and the biggest smile I have ever seen, she was dressed in a pair of white robes and had a staff with a blue gem on it.

“A unicorn?” The crowd started to whisper and look around until they found Sweetie; they immediately approached us. “They also have a pegasus!” Someone else said. “What is that one with them, though?”

“Hey, hey, please not too close.” I told them, putting myself between them and the girls. I bared out my fangs when they moved closer, “Stay back!”

The crowd started to back off and pull out their books and staffs. “What is happening here?” A booming voice asked from the entrance. The crowd immediately dispersed, letting the man come through. It was an old man with a short white beard and a bald head. He was thin, and not very tall; he was wearing a long blue vest decorated with gold and gemstones, he had a fancy staff covered with gold and runes, the man gave off an aura of power and wisdom. “My apologies.” He said with a bow of his head. “My students seem to have forgotten how one greets a guest.” he said, giving a glare to all of them, they recoiled and immediately took off for wherever they were going.

“I am Vesem Ador, headmaster of the College and archmage of Flora.” He said solemnly.

“Oh, uh, hi.” I said, calming down. “I’m Tela Pellegrino, these here are Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Applebloom. We would like to ask some questions regarding ourselves.” I told him.

“Sure, what is it?” He replied.

“Well, these girls and I do not come from here, and not from this world.” I told him.

“Hmm, are you a planar traveler?” He asked.

“No, and that’s the problem, they found there way here somehow without noticing, and I wasn’t even a Drider before this, I was a human.” I continued.

“Intriguing, are you looking for a way to change back?” He asked.

“No, not right now, this body is much more powerful than a human one, and I have been attacked a lot since I got here, so maybe later. But we want to go home, their families are waiting for them, and they must be worried. Please tell me how to get us back.” I pleaded.

“I will have to look into it. Traveling between worlds is a complicated art form, one that could lead to untold dangers if done wrong, I will look into it though be assured.” He said.

“Will you get us home?” Sweetie asked with her big eyes.

“I can only say this child; I’ll do my best.” He said, kneeling down and patting her head reassuringly. “But I must warn you. World traveling is extremely dangerous; there is the chance that your world may be impossible to find.” He said with his head hanging a bit low.

“Headmaster, please, do what you can. We have to go home to our family and friends.” I said with as much determination as possible.

“All I can do, all I can promise is to do my best to help you.” He said with a gentle smile.

“YAY!” The crusader shouted with glee. “Can we see the school now? If we have to stay here for a while, I would like to come here to study magic.” Sweetie said.

“It will be my pleasure, come along, then the duties of a headmaster are not that many after all.” He said and motioned for us to follow him. We did as instructed and went behind him, the girls all climbed on my abdomen and enjoyed the ride. We entered the first building and traversed the well-lit hallways; they were made of marble and shone with immaculate care. We arrived then at an enormous hall filled with seats in a greek theatre layout.

“This is the Aula Magna, here is where our professors teach the young mind the theory of magic.” He said, he then continued. “There are twenty more Aula Secundus around the building for each school of magic.”

“Can I ask a question?” Sweetie asked.

“Sure, ask away.” The headmaster told her.

“Do you also teach necromancy?” Sweetie said in a voice so low I could barely hear it.

“But of course, all the schools are accepted here, even if the locals are not too happy about it if you want to learn about it, then remember not to bring undead outside the college young lady.” He said with a pat on her head. He then continued his tour.

We went outside and arrived at the base of the immense tower. “Here is the Bibliothecam, the library, inside there is vast knowledge, students are allowed inside, but some areas are restricted until they are older.” He explained. We went near the edge of the mountain’s peak and found a previously unseen staircase leading inside the mountain.

“In here is where the majority of the testing grounds are located, if you continue heading north, you will find the dormitories, but we won’t go there.” He said, and turned south. We went deeper into the mountain, passed a great hall filled with students, and then descended a staircase. The walls transitioned from grey stone to red.

The interior design also changed a lot; instead of it being devoid of any kind of furniture, we saw a lot of statues and altars all around the hallways. In front of us, we saw a group of students all dressed in heavy black robes, in the middle of them there was what I could only describe as a humongous man with claws instead of feet. He had red skin, fins of the same color coming out from the sides of his head. He had a normal-looking human arm on his right side, which was almost comical on his immense body. His left arm was covered with a heavy cape, but I knew what it was. Under the cape, he hid his giant right arm, the one his species uses to fight.

I stared in disbelief at the blatant fiend strolling around the school. “Is that a Yagnoloth?” I asked the headmaster him waving to the colossus, who smiled and waved at me.

“Impressive, did you have prior education? And a good one at that, not many know them at all, I must commend you.” The headmaster said, surprised.

“You could say, I do.” I said back.

“Then do not worry,” The headmaster said, “He is a teacher here.” He nodded to the fiend and continued on.

‘Okay then…’ I thought, still a bit shocked.

After a minute or so, he stopped in front of a metal door, on it, there was a cross. “This is the medical laboratory; please enter, inside the doctor will probably find more about what happened to you four.” He said.

The room was pristine and held various instruments. It was large enough to fit a dozen or so people. It had two beds and a big metal table in the center. There was a desk right in front of the door with an empty chair behind it. “Hello, headmaster.” A voice said, coming out from behind a curtain. He was a gnome, barely taller than the girls, and wore a small doctor vest with a pair of glasses on his big and round nose; he had grey hair and a long grey beard. “To what do I owe the visit?” He asked.

“These girls need your help on an important matter, they claim to come from another planet, and this one was polymorphed into her current shape, could you scan them?” He asked.

“Of course, here.” He took his instruments from inside a drawer in the desk. “I’m going to do some basic examination, are you ready?” He said, looking at us, we all nodded.

“Wonderful, go onto the metal table, please.” The table was cold, and the sound of hooves crashed across it as the girls walked

“What now?” Applebloom asked.

“Wait just a second now…” The doctor trailed off, starting to cast some kind of spell. After a minute or so, the spell ended. “Okay, so, it seems like you have some kind of weird magic in you, but I’m not sure what it is yet, we will have to use this machine.” He pointed to a weird metal box, a meter tall with wheels under it and a single arm with a dish at the end, on the other side of the arm there was a monitor and hundreds of buttons. “To find out what kind of magic, the examination will be swift and easy, but you will have to wait for the results.” He finished.

“I mean sure, go ahead, every clue helps us.” I said back.

The doctor took his readings, and after that, we exited the medical wing. “Now, the only place that you have yet to visit is the druid’s holy grounds, would you like to see them?” The headmaster proposed.

“Is that on the weird disk?” Scootaloo asked.

“Why, yes, indeed.” The headmaster confirmed.

“Fantastic, let’s go!” She replied with merriment. The headmaster heartily laughed and walked off, we climbed back onto the mountain and arrived at a weird station. There was a stone cube on a stone pillar. It was one meter tall more or less, and when the headmaster touched it, a bright bridge colored like the rainbow appeared between the floating island and the mountain.

“The bridge is safe to traverse, come on.” The headmaster said, walking on it.

We traversed the bridge arriving on the island, which appeared to be a rainforest filled with plant life and lots of animals scurrying around. “This is where the druids connect with nature and are also where our rangers draw their powers from, they hone their skills on this island and get the help of magical creatures to accompany them along the route that is life.”

“Can I look around?” Scoot asked.

“Of course, the tour is finished anyway. You can all go where you want except the forbidden areas.” He then looked at me. “If you want to enlist them into the school, you can do so by talking to my secretary, you can find him on the third floor of the school first door to the right.” He said and took off towards said school.

“Okay girls, don’t get too far away from each other, I’ll go there and enlist you all to the college. We will see each other in half an hour at the station, does that sound good?” I asked them, I received nods of approval and headed to the main building.

I went inside, navigating through the students as I went and arrived at the secretary’s office. I knocked and entered. The transaction was easy enough, a total of 180 gold pieces per month, ‘Costs a lot, but hopefully, it will be worth it.’ With that matter settled, the girls and I went back to the inn to rest.

I took the nearest lantern for the VIP; they didn’t tell me if he could see in darkness or not. ‘Better be prepared,’ I thought, navigating the tunnel looking for the extraction point, the twenty minutes walk from the Den was fortunately uneventful.

“Hey, you, the girl that will escort the VIP?” A voice said from somewhere I couldn’t see in the tunnel.

“Yes, I’m here to take him.” I said to no one.

I heard a little splash coming from behind me, and I quickly turned around to face what it was and saw a soaked Scootaloo looking at me.

“Scootaloo!?” I gasped. “What are you doing here?” I hissed, picking her up.

“I wanted to see where you were going…” She said, looking down.

“Scoot, this is dangerous I can’t-”

Suddenly the ceiling above me opened up like a yawning maw. For a second, I saw the starry sky outside. Until now, I hadn’t really looked up at the sky and noticed the bright stars. There were other shiny objects in the sky as well, floating above the world in a blanket of crystalline shimmers. But before I could dwell on the sky, a brown sack got thrown down the hole and onto the ground. I quickly rushed to open it, finding bones inside covered with weird crystals embedded in them.

“What the fuck? The VIP is dead?” I asked myself, hoping the voice would still hear me.

“Tela, why are you taking a pile of bones?” Scootaloo asked.

“Now that’s just uncalled for. I may be deathless young lady, but I’m not just a pile of bones.” The pile of bones said.

“Oh, a skeleton? Why aren’t you mindless?” I asked, putting the sack down, the skeleton stepped out of it and reassembled back into a humanoid shape before bowing.

“I am Glynberos of the Dalishny family, and I’m much more than a normal skeleton, but we can talk about it later, for now, we have to go.” He said in a well-polished manner.

“Okay…” I replied, looking at Scootaloo “We will have a chat later about this, for now, come along.” I told her. I took the sack and started to walk back. That is until I felt a tremor coming from around us, the tremor got worse, and before any of us could even think, the ceiling collapsed, I quickly pushed the bag of bones away and jumped away from the falling debris. Scootaloo already a few steps behind me.

“Are you okay?” Glynberos asked from behind the wall of rubbles that now blocked the whole canal.

“Yes, but what- Oh shit!” I shouted, noticing a gigantic shape lunging at me. I quickly dodged and got a look at my attacker, and as soon as I did, I closed my eyes. It was a six-legged lizard with stony warts all over its body and slitted eyes; in other words, a Basilisk.

‘Of all the motherfuckers to come here, why a Basilisk? I can’t fight blinded.’ I angrily thought. “Scoot! Close your eyes now!”

“What?” Scootaloo replied, coughing from the dust.

“Close them!” I shouted with more vigor.

“What happened!?” I heard Glynberos shout.

“Basilisk! Run!” I shouted back and focused on dodging. I put my whole focus on my hearing. I waited and listened to its movements on the water of the sewer. I heard the splashing of water from my right, and I dodged, getting my abdomen grazed.

“A Basilisk? What is a snake doing here?” Scootaloo asked.

“It is not a snake. It’s an eight-legged reptile Scoot.” I replied, backing off.

“That’s weird.” She murmured. “Nevermind, how tall is it, and where is it’s head!” She asked.

“Barely a meter and half tall, on all four like you, eyes are small on the upper part of its head, what are you trying to do?” I asked her.

“I’m going to shoot his eyes off.” She replied calmly, she breathed in and out and then shot with her crossbow. The Basilisk howled with pain when a wet sound came from it. “Bullseye!” Scootaloo cheered. “SHIT!” She swore, hitting the wall with a thud.

I leaped forward and tried to attack its other eye. Unfortunately, the creature avoided the attack, acting like a whip its tail hit me, I cried in pain, feeling blood coming out from my lower body. Scootaloo, on the other hand, moaned and stood back on her hooves.

“You stupid lizard, I’m going to rip your eyes out!” She screamed angrily at the creature. She shot another bolt, and this time it hit the head the creature near its eye.

“Scoot, listen to me, I have an idea. Open your eyes, look down and slide under the Basilisk, I will break the lantern and make it look at itself into the shards!” I shouted.

“Okay!” Scootaloo shouted back and started to trot, I heard her sliding under the creature, I heard the Basilisk turn around, so I opened my eyes, grabbing the lantern, took off one of the windows that it had and got ready for the Basilisk.

I made a sudden piercing whistle sound that made Scootaloo flinch and the Basilisk turn around, I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. When I didn’t hear any more noises coming from the creature, I opened my eyes and saw a statue where the Basilisk once stood.

“we did it!” Scootaloo shouted. She immediately took my dagger and went over the Basilisk. She stabbed into it over and over until the petrified eyeball came out of it. “I always make good on my word.” She said nodding to herself, putting the eye in her saddlebag she looked at me.

“I’m glad you are okay, now come on we have to find the bag of bones and return to the Den.” I said.

“What’s the Den?”” She asked.

“I’ll explain when we get there.” I told her with a sigh. We reunited with Glynberos and made our way back to the Den. When we arrived, Scootaloo was enthralled with it while I was talking with Glynberos.

“Thank you half spider, I owe you my freedom, this I will not forget.” He said with a bow.

“No problem, it was fun.” I said, sounding as happy as a piece of cardboard.

“Thank you again.” He bowed a little and went to the office of Krivroth. Krivroth then came to talk to me.

“A fantastic job Tela, I knew you were the perfect one for it, continue like this, and the boss may even Pick you for some special jobs.” He said with a good-natured pack on my abdomen.

“Thanks, anytime.” I said, I quickly took Scootaloo, I exited the sewers and went home.

That night Scootaloo learned that going into dangerous places without me knowing is terrible for her ear.

Quest#6: Down the spider hole

View Online

“I’ll miss you!” I shouted in tears hugging the three little ponies with all my might, “I’ll miss you soooo much!” At the moment, we were at the station, the girls were ready to leave for school, and I just couldn’t handle the emotion of it, maybe that’s what parents feel when the same happens for us.

“Geeez, Tela, we get it, you don’t need to be so dramatic about it.” Scootaloo said, trying to pry my arms off.

“We will miss you too, Tela!” Sweetie said, she too, in tears. “Thank you for teaching me how to knit.”

“We will try to come over and visit whenever we can, don’t worry.” Applebloom said reassuringly, “I’ll even write you a letter every week, ok?”

“Fine…” I said, releasing them, they were so cute and so eager to go. They had their own little bags, filled with books, quills, and whatnot. “Go before I decide not to let you go again.” I said, still crying.

They nodded. “Don’t worry. We will be fine.” Applebloom said.

“Pft is the other students that have to fear us!” Scootaloo remarked boldly.

“Knock them dead!” Noctis yelled from the outside of the station. Yeah, he was there too. Personally, I think he was there just to try and smuggle in some drink for Apple Bloom.

“Be safe ok?” I told them, kissing them on the foreheads, “You will be great, I know it.” Maybe I was telling that for myself rather than them.

“Thanks.” They said, then Scootaloo proceeded to vigorously wipe my kiss away from her forehead while the other giggled at her expenses. Then we heard the train arrive.

“We have to go.” Sweetie said, still a bit sad.

“Then go.” I told them with a smile. They smiled back and stepped onto the cart.

“I’m boreeeeeeeed!” I shouted to no one. I was in the inn, first floor sipping away my boredom with coffee. There weren’t a lot of guests today, so the hall was mostly empty.

“If you are so bored, why don’t you go out there and find a job?” Noctis proposed.

“I technically have a job, though.” I pouted. “It’s just that they never contact me.”

“Uh, you do know that the jobs are at the guild, and they won’t just appear in front of you, right?” He pointed out.

“A girl can dream…” I said, finishing my coffee. “Then I’ll be off, see ya!” I said with a wave and went off to the guild. The walk there was a nice one, the weather was good, and the sun gave the whole place a pleasant atmosphere. I entered the guild and hurried to the request board. There I started to browse through the list. My eyes wandered to a specific job. It was a clear and straightforward one, clean a spider nest because they were causing a lot of damage to nearby farmers. I took the job and went to the desk to make it official, and at the window was the little employee from last time.

“Hi, darling.” I said with a hint of charm in it.

“Oh, you again.” He said, starting to sweat.

“Oh, indeed, me again. I need you to make this thing official, can you?” I said, handing him the paper.

“Oh, right, uhm. Here.” He said, putting a mark on it and storing it in a little compartment. “All done, the job is a public one, you will have to wait for tomorrow here, and if anyone wants to, they can come with you. Ok?” He said with a bit more conviction.

“Fine by me.” I replied easily, “Then I’ll be off. See ya, darling.” but before I headed back to the inn, I looked around and found several signs that pointed at a shop inside the guild, I had to exit the main hall and go through a side door on the other side of the building. I went there and started to look around, while they didn’t have any armor for me, of course, they did have a halberd. Historically it was the ultimate medieval weapon. I paid the clerk at the armory and went back to the inn.

The next day I returned to the guild and waited, it was almost noon when the mission officially started, ten minutes after that, two guys arrived for the job.

“Good day, Woah!” The first one said after noticing me, at first, he was just talking with his friend and completely missed me. “What are you?” He asked.

“A drider.” I dryly replied.

“A well equipped one at that.” The other said with a whistle.

“Dude!”

“What? It’s true!”

“Ok, I know that very well, but you are not here to stare at me, we have to wait another ten minutes then we can head off to the cave, what can you do?” I asked them bluntly.

The first one coughed in his hand. “First of all I’m Dave.” he said, his face was small, with no beard he had an aura of cleanliness that many time was missing in the town, he had short black hair and wore worn-out leather armor, he had a sword at his side, and a shield strapped to his right arm. He offered his left hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“My name is Tela, a pleasure to meet you.” I said.

“And I’m Ohrn, a pleasure to know you as well.” The other one said. He had a round face, with a long red beard filled with rings and other trinkets. His hair was long and styled into a ponytail. He was smaller than Dave. He didn’t even reach my belly button if I stayed fully upright, he wore a decent looking cape filled with drawings, he had a bell on his belt and a mace right next to it.

“As for what we can do, I’m just a humble warrior, I fight for a living, and I do it well.” Dave said firmly, grasping at the hilt of his sword.

“And I’m a messenger and a preacher of life, I draw my power from my own belief that everyone needs a second chance.” Ohrn concluded with a small laugh.

“Oh, well, I’m also just a warrior I-I can knit, though.” I replied taken aback by their conviction and determination about what they can do.

“Don’t worry, Tela, everyone is more than welcome to be an adventurer, it is not a competition after all.” He said with a thumb up and a bright smile.

“Although I would win.” Ohrn said, booming laughter followed closely after by a smaller one from Dave.

“You wish you rock brain.” Dave said with a broad smile.

“My brain isn’t the thing that rocked your mother yesterday!” He shouted with a pointed finger. Then they both started laughing like maniacs holding their bellies with tears streaming down their faces. I also started to laugh. I really needed it.

“Alright.” Dave said, clapping his hands, “Before we go, let’s go in and buy some supplies we will need.” I didn’t know what the last one was, so I just followed through.

We went inside the guild and this time went inside a door restricted to non-members, how I missed it the first time I came in is still something I can’t explain. In any case, we opened the door and revealed a long staircase leading down. The stairs were in pristine condition and well illuminated, we continued down transitioning from bricks to raw stone and finally ending with chiseled stone, at the end of the stairs there was another wooden door closed by locks.

Ohrn knocked on it, and a voice asked from the other side. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Ohrn!” He announced.

“Oh, Ohrn, you old fart come in.” The guy replied with a laugh opening the door. He let it open completely, and we entered. The little man rubbed his hands and then closed the door behind us without uttering a sound. He then returned to his chair near it and resumed reading a book.

We continued down the corridor after the door and arrived at a bustling, bazaar. There were dozens of people and just meters of space to walk. There was barely any space for me, so I decided to climb on the ceiling and follow them from there. They got near a stall full of bottles and weird papers and other magical items.

“Good day.” Dave said to the vendor.

“Good day, adventurers, I’m Barakor.” He said, looking at me. He was a tall, muscular Goliath. His broad chest showed hundreds of scars, and his arms were covered in tattoos depicting hunts for wild game. “What can I do for you?” He asked.

“We need some alchemical fire, oil, and fire paper.” Dave said, pointing at the items in order.

“I see, do you need this for some spider hunting by any chance? Wouldn’t be the first group asking me for something like that.” He said, gathering the goods.

“Indeed, we have a spider nest to burn.” Ohrn said.

“Heard of it, hope you kill them all, damned eight-legged vermins.” He said with a sneer. Dave pointed upwards, and he noticed my very unladylike glare. He swallowed hard while stammering out an excuse. “No offense, hehe.”

“None taken, so what is all this?” I asked with a sigh.

“An adventurer best friend when dealing with insects and the like.” Ohrn said, “Fire paper especially is the best one for the job.” He explained.

“What does it do?” I asked, intrigued.

“You don’t know?” They both asked with bewilderment.

“Uhm, no? Sorry…” I said, embarrassed.

“Oh, I don’t know either, care to explain?” Dave said immediately after.

“Uh, sure. You rub this on your weapon of choice, and it will spark with flames for a time, perfect to deal extra fire damage to anything that deserves it.” Barakor explained.

“Intriguing…” I never heard of something like that in the manual. It was so exciting.

“Fantastic! With this, we can have an edge.” Dave said ecstatically.

“Sure will.” Barakor continued. “These all will be ten gold pieces.”

“So…” I started. “Shall we go?”

Three hours passed, and we entered the forest near the city. I was tempted to go natural, but I didn’t want to distract the guys, especially in a dangerous situation, ‘Sometimes I hate being so understanding.’ I thought. It turns out I’m the fastest one of the group thanks to my spider legs not being hindered by difficult terrain, because of that I acted as the scout of the group, I would stay ahead and warn them if anything was up ahead.

The forest was thick but not hot, heavy with humidity and full of insects, we navigated the vegetation until we started to find grass covered in webs, trees connected by strings and abandoned cocoons, we were getting near. Suddenly from the shadows around us, a large dark body shot out and attacked Dave.

He shouted, frightened by the sudden action before swiftly putting his shield in the spider’s mouth and avoiding being bit. I immediately sprung into action and took my new weapon in my hands, looking around for any more spiders.

“One more!” Ohrn shouted, firing a dart made out of fire at the creature, hitting it in the eye’s burning away a majority of its fur. I heard the sound of moving foliage behind me. I spun around, pointing my halberd at the spider that was lunging at me, impaling it, died immediately it’s body twitching. In the meanwhile, Dave smacked the spider with his shield, took out his sword, and killed it with a vicious blow at the head.

Ohrn fired yet another firebolt and killed the remaining one. “Not too shabby.” Dave said, dusting himself off. “I hope this spider blood won’t stain.” he muttered, looking at his messy clothes.

“Quit your whining Dave. We must move. We made a lot of noise here. We have to find the cave.” Ohrn said nervously.

“Good job on the kill Tela.” Dave complimented me.

“Thanks, Dave.” I replied easily. We nodded and continued on. After some more time, we finally reached the entrance of the cave. It was completely obscured by webs. They were so thick that not even light could pass through. “How do we get in?”

“We burn it.” Ohrn said, starting to fire darts at the barrier until it gave in. We had to light up a torch for Dave before we entered. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing.

“Why do humans have such bad eyes?” Ohrn said, his eyes struggling to keep their night vision next to the bright light.

“Not my fault.” Dave replied in a mutter.

“It doesn’t matter.” I said, on guard.

“What do you mean?” Ohrn asked.

“Well, the spiders all have darkvision, and they know when someone is touching their webs, I bet my ass that they already know we are here, at least they should be scared of the fire.” I told them to continue down in the dark, damp tunnel.

“Uh, you may be right.” Ohrn concluded.

“Why thank-” I got interrupted by a spider landing squarely on me, the spider immediately bit down on my shoulder. I hissed in pain and grabbed it then slammed it on the ground, I impaled it with my halberd, killing it. I looked at my injury, and it was bleeding rather badly.

“Oh man, Tela, don’t worry, I have a spell that can help.” Ohrn said, grasping his bell.

I put a hand forward, “No need.” I told him, I focused opened my mouth and consumed the dead spider, It broke down, and the black dust floated into my mouth, heal me. I put the leftover residue in my abdomen for later use.

“What the?” Ohrn asked, dumbfounded.

“I’ m-I have a rather unique ability.” I told him.

“Well, I won’t complain, a self-healing ability? Only makes our party stronger, so count me in.” Dave said optimistically.

“Don’t I scare you or weird you out?” I asked.

“I’ve seen my fair share of weird shit.” He said nonchalantly, “Like Ohrn.”

“Hoi”!” The latter said in mocking indignation.

We chuckled at that and continue forward, keeping ourselves always on guard, no more laughs and no more idle chat. With the tone now set, we arrived at a giant chamber easily hundreds of meters tall and just as wide. In front of us, I saw a cocoon, filled to the brim with eggs. Then I heard the breathing of a massive creature right above us. I looked up and saw the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life.

“RUN!” I shouted, grabbing Dave and pulling him away from under the falling spider who landed heavily on the raw rock underneath it. The spider clicked its mandible with and attacked. A giant leg hit Ohrn square in the chest, making him fall to his knees, gasping for air. Dave unsheathed his sword and immediately rubbed the fire paper on it, setting it ablaze with fire. I pulled out the flasks of oil and threw one at the spider.

The flask shattered against the spider covering it in oil, while it was distracted by Dave I started to climb the walls to try and cover the spider completely. By the third oil flask, I saw Dave go flying from a vicious blow from the spider and collapsing onto the floor. He persevered and got up on one knee with his sword.

Ohrn made a quick prayer, and Dave returned to the fight. The spider, though, had enough of him. It opened its mouth and shot out a ton of web covering the entire floor in an extremely thick layer of sticky silk. Dave and Ohrn had no way to avoid it, and they got captured in it.

“Fuck, Ohrn, do something!” Dave shouted.

“What?”

I took the flask of alchemical fire and tossed it at the giant spider before it could do anything to them, the cave immediately became so bright it hurt my eyes, but the shrieks of terror and pain of the spider were proof enough for me to know that it wasn’t pleasant for it either. I went down from the walls and got near my two companions. I started to tear the webs away when Ohrn began to shout. I looked behind me and saw to my horror that the web were bursting into flames.

“Oh shit!” I shouted and doubled my efforts. Dave managed to get free, and so we both started to work on Ohrn. But before we could, we saw spiders coming from the walls around us. We had to leave Ohrn to battle the spiders. Fortunately, they were pretty weak, I chopped and severed left and right while healing myself with the fallen bodies. The battle became more and more hectic with every second, spiders crawling from everywhere and the flames coming near us.

“Get Ohrn out of there, Tela!” Dave shouted abruptly and immediately after ran straight into the incoming horde of spiders hacking and slashing like a madman.

“Dave, are you crazy!” I shouted.

“Get Ohrn, Tela for fuck sake!” he shouted, but his distraction costed him. A spider jumped him and sunk its fangs into its neck. After a moment, he stopped moving.

“DAVE!” I shouted with grief and rage. I grabbed Ohrn by his armor and yanked him free with one arm, I pulled him away from the spiders, as I got swarmed by the horde. I got bit over and over again. Pain surged through all my body and, with it, an ever-increasing hunger.

I snapped. I shouted and screamed like an animal ripping the spiders off and crushing them between my fingers. I was too busy ripping and tearing to remember to eat them to patch my wounds. I did remember that a certain giant spider was still alive.

I roared with hunger and rage when the spider revealed itself. My vision became red with bloodlust. I dashed forward and grabbed the oncoming leg latching to it, biting and hitting it’s base with my weapon over and over until it came off.

I devoured it, but my hunger was far from satiated, I ran to the spider, now not on fire anymore, and slashed and punched everything in my path, I bit it when possible and more than once I stabbed one of its eyes. The spider tried to flee.

I roared in defiance of its cowardice and followed it. “DIE!” I shouted in rage and insane hunger. I jumped on its abdomen, stabbing and slashing at it with my halberd, using it to reach its head. Once there I ripped off everything that I could get my hands on, I looked at it and thrust my halberd, now almost broken, in its thick head. Spinning it around, the spider tried to dislodge me. It even tried to slam me against a wall, but I was too far gone to notice the pain.

I continued until it couldn’t move anymore. I finished by collapsing in its face. After it finally died,’ I opened my mouth. Slowly but surely, the massive beast became a thick black mist that floated to my mouth. I could feel a flow of strength and raw excitement running through me, my legs trembled, and I almost fell over but managed to regain my balance before I could.

When the corpse was gone, I started to think clearly once again, my hunger was satisfied, and my body was stronger. With the ashes gone, I saw something on the ground. It seemed to be some kind of fang, I couldn’t discern its color, but from where it was I think it was once inside the spider.

Finished, that thought I remembered that Dave was still there on the ground. ‘Dave!’ I took the fang with me and put it in my bag and immediately ran back, finding Ohrn kneeled over his fallen friends chanting and ringing his bell over and over.

“What are you doing?” I asked him, confused.

“Dave can still be saved. Come, we must return to Flora.” He said in a tone that didn’t condone any further argumentation. I took Dave in my arms, putting him on my abdomen and strapping him down with some silk.

I looked back to Dave, who had two copper coins on his eyes. “Gentle repose?” I asked Ohrn. He stumbled a bit and looked at me, shocked.

“You know the spell?” He asked.

I nodded. “Yes, two coins of any kind over a dead body, and it is ready to be resurrected for ten days.” I explained to him.

“I didn’t know you were a believer in life.” He said with a bit of surprise.

“I’m not but, I’m an all-around girl. I know a bit of everything.” I said with a little smile. “Do you think there is someone in Flora that can resurrect him?”

“Sure is, doctor Halgona is renewed for his mastery of saving people from the cold hands of death.” Ohrn explained.

“Who is he?” I asked, curious.

“Halgona is a halfling, a gifted one. His mastery over the healing dragonmark is almost absolute. Second only to Ulara d’Jorasco.” Ohrn said.

“I see.” We didn’t talk much after that. We continued onward in eerie silence until we finally returned to Flora. We entered the gates showing the guards our guild badges, which made them back off. We walked through the city and arrived at a large isolated building. It was white with a sign that read “healing.” We entered the hospital, or at least what a hospital looked like in the medieval times.

The inside was pearly white, with a couple of patients waiting in the first room we entered. We went to a nearby desk and asked for the doctor. They showed us to his office.

“Doctor, we come here to ask for your ability, please save my friend.” Ohrn said, with a courteous bow of his head.

“There is no need for that, come on.” The doctor said he was a halfling with a simple looking white lab coat and various potions at his side. “As long as you can pay, then it’s all good.”

“We have the money.” Ohrn said, standing up.

“Then let’s get working, put him on the bed.” He ordered. The doctor took a diamond out of his pocket and put it on Dave’s chest. He started an incantation of some kind and slammed down. When he lifted his hand, the diamond was gone, and Dave's wounds began to knit themselves back together.

Suddenly Dave opened his eyes. He was in shock, of course, but otherwise ok. Ohrn shot up and hugged him hard. “You stupid human, don’t you dare do something like that again!”

“You rock brain, do you really think death is enough to kill me? Hahaha” He said with a ragged voice. “Tela! You are alright?” He asked, noticing me.

“Not dead, at least.” I replied with a smile.

“Glad to know that, you have to tell me how you killed the spider though.” He said hopping down on the floor but stumbling forward almost falling, I quickly intercepted him. “Well, I won’t complain, but the fact that I’m too weak to walk is really killing my pride.” He said with his head on my shoulders. “But I could make an exception for some soft pillows.” He said with a laugh.

“Don’t push your luck, or I will let Ohrn carry you.” I said with a chuckle.

“What’s so bad about it?” Ohrn asked.

“You are so little you’d have to drag me on the ground!” Dave answered.

“Oh, I will drag you through every mud puddle we can find you little-” Ohrn got interrupted by a cough.

“I’m very happy for your reunion, but I will need my payment.” Halgona said.

“Oh, of course, my apologies.” Ohrn said, retrieving a bag full of coins, he handed it over. Halgona weighted it with his hand and nodded. Then he left the room, probably to deposit the coins.

“Ok, let’s go back to the guild and take our reward.” I said, eager to get my payment.

Two hundred gold pieces each for our work, unfortunately, Ohrn and Dave, told me that they will rest for a while before taking any more adventures. However, they are more than happy to see me at their inn or them at mine if the opportunity arises.

“So, how was it?” Noctis asked me over a good beer.

“Not bad, almost died, but I got the satisfaction of killing a giant ass spider.” I said.

“Isn’t that murder for you?” He asked, drinking his own beer.

“Nah, I’m only half spider, so that’s half murder?” I said with a laugh. “Oh, I also found something weird in the cavern let me show you…” I looked inside the bag to retrieve the weird fang and showed it to him. “Cool, isn’t it?”

“Sure is, why don’t you send it to Scoot? She seems to want it for a cool factor.” He said dismissively

“Might as well.” I told him and put it back, the next day I shipped it to the school and waited for the return letter which would have told me how awesome I was.

It was a nice day for Sweetie Belle, a week has passed, and the lessons were going nicely. The girls were all staying in the dorms. Their rooms were still near each other, fortunately.

Sweetie yawned lazily, closing the book she took from the library and headed to bed. Strangely on her pillow was a box. She carefully took it in her magic and levitated it over to her desk. She was too tired to open it now and considered waiting for tomorrow. But before she could, she heard something “Open… this tomb…” A voice said, it was ancient, powerful, and pleading.

Sweetie gulped and opened the box with her magic, inside there was a weird-looking object, as long as her hoof was wide, it was red with hints of black towards the base. It looked like a curved fang. Looking at it closer, Sweetie recognized it as a horn. Taking it in her magic and put it on the desk, after looking at it closely, she prodded it with her hoof.

“Wear… me…” The voice said. “Bask… in the presence… of the King!”

Time passes

View Online

"Today's a beautiful day!" Applebloom said with a spring in her hooves. The filly and her friends were all chattering at a table inside the inn.

"Yes, Applebloom, we know, today's your birthday." Sweetie said to her friend. The horn she found swung loosely from her neck. The drew eyes due to it clashing with her fur.

"Yup!" Scootaloo said with her usual enthusiasm, "I can't believe you chose the day with a game of dart!" She said with a laugh. "And luckily enough, on spring break!"

"Hey, the months are different here, and it was about the same time." Applebloom reasoned.

"So, girls." I started. "How did it go? Your letters were nice, but they lacked a lot of details, so… any boyfriend?" I teasingly asked.

"Ugh, no!" Scootaloo said with disgust, then she slammed her head on the table. "Don't you start too." She groaned.

I stood there, confused, "I'm sorry?"

Applebloom sighed while Sweetie started to look around. "Sweetie joined a band of bards, and every time she comes back, she tries to play matchmaker with us, she even used her magic to make Scootaloo wear some makeup. It wasn't her best work." She said, stifling a laugh while Scootaloo was trying to shrink down in her chair.

"It was so embarrassing, not cool Sweetie!" She said bitterly.

"Well, you girls need some company after all." Sweetie said.

"And you don't?" I asked.

"I already have company, Sombra here teaches me and keeps me company when I'm alone." She replied.

"Uhm, who's Sombra?" I asked, confused.

"The necklace." She said easily.

I cocked an eyebrow.

She rolled her eyes. "The necklace can talk. He was the ancient king of the Crystal Empire and comes from Equestria. He is a powerful unicorn and is teaching me how to do cool tricks like this." She hopped down onto the floor, and the shadows on the ground started to move, creating a silhouette that danced around a shadowy campfire.

"Neat." I replied, watching the shadows dance.

"Yup, he says that given time, I will be able to do much more, but I'm not ready yet." Sweetie stayed silent for a moment "Yes, I know you want me to study, but today is a special day." "Don't call me prissy, that's my sister." "Oh, ok, then fine." She grumbled under her breath.

I sighed in contempt. "We are so weird."

"Sure are!" Applebloom said. "But today I get to be one year weirder… One year uh, now that I think about it, a year is pretty long." She said deflating.

"Sure is, I wonder how they are doing." Sweetie replied.

"Rainbow Dash sure is being as awesome as she always has, but I miss her." She said.

"Same." Applebloom said, looking down onto the table, soft tears started to drip from her eye. "I miss my family." The others weren't far behind from tearing up themselves, Scootaloo resisted the longest.

I couldn't watch it happen, so I wrapped them all in my arms and hugged them tightly. "We will go home, don't worry. I will always be here for you, ok?" I told them. They nodded and dried their tears on my shirt, I didn't care. "Feel better?"

They nodded once again. "Come on today is a happy day, no tears." Scootaloo said, wiping her tears off, "Tenebrae bring us the festive drinks!" She shouted.

"Sigh, just one drink. You are not old enough to drink alcohol." I told them.

"We will be fine." she said.

They weren't, by the way. 'I can't believe my eyes.' On the table, Applebloom was happily singing some kind of weird song about winter, Sweetie was on the ground playing with her necklace, and I could hear some grumbling coming from it, and scoot.

Scoot was beating up everyone who challenged her.

"Come on, Show me what you got!" She taunted the two men in front of her. She shot up and hit their legs, making them tumble on the ground, she then jumped and landed on their heads, knocking them out. "Aw yeah, another victory for me!"

Then she puked and passed out. "Sigh. I knew this would happen." I told myself.

"It was a wonderful show though!" Tenebrae said with a round of applause.

"Sure was, I will bring them to my room." I looked out, the sun was going down quite rapidly and the day was almost over, in an hour, or so I had to go out for my weekly job. 'I hope they will be alright.'

I put them onto my bed, and they happily cuddled together in their sleep, the birthday went well. I opened the window and walked out, going back to the Den, I arrived later on at Krivroth's office to pick up my next mission.

"So, what is it this time?" I asked him while I looked around.

"Unfortunately, nothing good, we have a big problem." He took out a map of the town and pointed at the residential area inside the walls. "The population here is getting, for lack of a better term, dumber. One of our agents saw a man pouring vials in the well two weeks ago, he came back last week, and we had someone follow him. We lost him in the sewers, but we know he comes back every week. That is the closest well, so this is probably a direct attack on the guild. Follow him, and find out if this is another crime family trying to take us out.

"When can I start? I mean, when will he be back?" I asked.

"Three days from now." He answered back, closing the map. "I can't stress this enough, but be careful. If this is against the guild, there could be a gang there waiting to take over."

"Don't worry, I'm made of tough stuff." I said with a fist on my chest.

"I'm sure you are, still. Caution is advised." He then nodded and gestured to me to go out, dismissing me.

I got out of the office and headed to my favorite place to get magic items, the bazaar. I headed there to finally receive the gifts I ordered for the girls. 'They will love these!'

The next morning I woke up on the ceiling and headed downstairs with my carefully wrapped gifts, two for each they absolutely deserve them. I arrived at their table and waited for them to finish breakfast.

"Good morning Tela!" Applebloom said with a big smile.

"Morning!" The others said.

"Good morning, girls, finish breakfast, I have something for all of you." I told them with a smile.

They gulped down their breakfast and rushed over to me.

"Ok, ok, settle down, now the first gift goes to the birthday girl."

"For you, Applebloom, I have this magical shield!" I told her, giving her a metallic shield with runes and gems on it. "While it doesn't have any flashy enchantment on it, it will keep you safe, and the next gift you will have to unwrap yourself." I said with a small laugh.

She stared at the shield with wide, glistening eyes. "It's beautiful...Thanks!" She said, hugging me tightly.

"Come on now, open your next one." She immediately zipped to it and ripped it open with her teeth, when she finally gnawed it open she stared at the set of orange-colored armor I got her. It was a set of half-plate, not too heavy for her but still powerful enough to block most blows, and best of all…

"Is this custom fit?" She shouted with glee. "This is perfect, but how did you get it?" She asked while still looking at it, the other girls looking at it with curiosity.

"I have connections." I told her ambiguously.

"Oh ok, Ah'm gonna try it on, wait here!" She ran upstairs, returning minutes later with her armor on. The armor covered her whole upper body leaving her stomach draped in chainmail. Her hind legs were covered by armor up to her cutie mark. They looked like chainmail stockings with metal plates in the front connected to the rest of her armor.

"That's awesome!" Scootaloo bellowed, looking at Applebloom from all sides.

"It is really shiny and beautiful, Applebloom." Sweetie commented.

"But I'm not done yet!" I said, taking the other gifts from the Krampus bag, "You girls also have gifts. Dig in!"

Scootaloo rushed to hers and opened them in seconds, she looked mesmerized at her new crossbow, finely tuned with magic to give her an advantage. She then opened her other gift and took out her studded leather armor, she looked at it with wide eyes and immediately donned it.

"This is incredible, It's so light!" She shouted with glee, "And it has wing holes!"

I left Scootaloo with Applebloom to compare armor and watched Sweetie Belle opening her gifts. She opened the first one and found a ring within. "What is this?" She asked, confused. "It is a ring made from Mabaran Ebony, it enhances necrotic magic, so I thought it would fit you. But that isn't all." I pointed at the last gift on the table. She unwrapped it with her magic and took out a beautiful sparkling dress that seemed to move on its own, "What is this?"

"Glamerweave, it will help you give the right impression and leave people slack-jawed." I told her with a wink.

"Thanks, we also got something for you, we worked at the school and managed to get some money."

"Oh girls, there was no need…"

"And we bought this for you!" They said, showing a heart-shaped necklace.

"What is it?" I asked, putting it around my neck.

"It will make you heal faster, you always put yourself between us and danger, we can't allow you to get too hurt now, can we?" Sweetie said. I took the necklace and spun it around and noticed a phrase on the backside. 'Honorary cutie mark crusader!'

"It's beautiful… Thanks." I told them with tears in my eyes, we all hugged together and spent the day joking and playing around.

The girls and I were out to the bazaar to look around for new magic items. I managed to keep the girls away from the shady area Krivroth told me about. There is no telling what they will try and sell from cursed items to fake potions.

We bought scrolls and magical inks for Sweetie Belle, alchemical ingredients for Apple Bloom, and a new arrow box for Scootaloo. After a few hours, we decided to get something to eat at a restaurant in an alcove of the bazaar. "So, what are you going to order?" I asked them.

"I'll take a salad." Applebloom replied immediately. "With apples."

"I guess I'll try a flying fish … fish, can fly too?" She murmured the last part.

"I'll get some chicken strips and a steak." She said the last part with clear hesitation.

"A steak!" Applebloom shouted. "Are you crazy?"

"What's the big deal?" I asked, confused.

"Cow's talk!" Applebloom said, becoming greener by the second.

"But Applebloom, Sombra says I need to eat it to make my dark powers grow!" Loud thunder started to go off as she said it.

"Shut up." I told her, giving her a smack on the back of the head. "And stop using minor illusion like that."

"Aww, but I was just getting into it. How can I be a good necromancer if I don’t look evil?" She asked with big eyes.

"Then you will be the shittiest necromancer ever, don't take after them, they always lose." I told her. "And Applebloom, cows don't talk here, Sweetie was pulling your leg."

"Thank goodness" She replied, still green.

"Aww, way to ruin my pranks." Sweetie pouted.

"That wasn't nice, Sweetie." I scolded her.

"Eh, I guess it was funny to see AB freak out about it." Scootaloo replied.

"You knew too?" Applebloom replied with a look of betrayal in her eyes.

"YUP"

"I got backstabbed!" Applebloom said, smashing her face on the table. "You girls are so mean." She muffled out.

"Uhm, ladies?" A man asked from my right, "Your order?" We gave him our orders and waited patiently for him to come back.

"Oh, hey, the food's here." I said, looking at the server coming our way. We got out food, and I literally inhaled it in seconds. I cleaned my mouth with a cloth and waited for them.

"Way to make this awkward Tela." Scootaloo said with a flying fish's wing in her mouth.

"I'll just wait for you." I replied casually.

"Yeah, not weird at all to have ponies eat dust right." Scootaloo deadpanned.

"Oh, shush, and eat." I told her.

Right after that, I heard people coming our way. I glanced at them and saw that they were all students of the college, they were mostly Tieflings, but humans and some elves were also in the group. They all had some alterations done to their robes, like runes or symbols that I didn't recognize stitched into them.

"And so I managed to make a pact with him, and he gave me this Imp as a familiar, only thing he asked was to give him some animal blood as a sacrifice, weird right?"

"That's weird, alright I had to sell off my right hand." Another said, showing his demonic clawed hand.

"Oi, isn't that Sweetie Belle?" Another shouted, pointing at us.

Sweetie Belle hummed and looked back, when she saw them she waved happily. "Hey guys, good to see you too."

"Oi Sweetie, what are you doing here?" The demonic handed one asked.

"I'm here to eat with my friends, oh right, you don't know her. This is Tela." She said, presenting me.

"A pleasure." I started. "You could say I'm their legal guardian, and you are?" I inquired.

"We are the Sabbat, we are the demon studying group of the school, Sweetie is a legend there, she stared down a full-grown demon a month after school started." He said with clear awe.

"Yeah, she was awesome; she even had all those cool purple particles and smoke around her. Her tattoo is cool as well, so we asked her if she wanted to be part of us, and she accepted."

I looked back at Sweetie. "Really?"

"Yeah, I mean it was mostly Sombra that did the talking. They taught me all kinds of things, and whenever I need some bodies for my studies, they always have some nearby." She explained.

"What?" I asked them.

"We just use the morgue the school already has, only seniors can go in though so Sweetie has to ask us until she is old enough." They explained briefly.

"I see. So you are saying that she is popular?" I asked.

"Basically, everyone knows her and her friends, hell Scootaloo managed to capture a thief in the library."

"Really?" I asked her.

"Nothing much." She started casually. "I was training with my crossbow late at night and found a guy trying to steal books. I shot him in the leg, then I hit him in the head with my crossbow." She recalled with as much smugness as possible.

"Anything else I should know?" I asked the group. "What Applebloom discovered the elixir of eternal youth or something?"

"Nah, she did make a ton of apple-based ones though, maybe she got a little overboard. I mean, I am happy to have some more healing potions, but I swear if I taste any more apples, I'm going to throw up." The demonic hand one said with a laugh. "Sorry, but we are late, we have a summoning to do, and be careful the city recently captured a band of criminals coming from the forest, they were blabbering about beasts and undead." He said while walking away. "See ya, Sweetie!"

"See ya. cool guys, uh?" She said.

"yep." I told her, a bit unsure.

After that encounter, we returned to the inn, we dropped our shopping bags in our rooms and went back down to hang around and chat a bit.

"So girls, you never went into too many details, how was a life where you come from?" I asked them genuinely curious.

They put a hoof under their chin, "Well-" They all said together.

"Well," Scootaloo started. "Back in Ponyville, I lived with my aunts, the girls, and I mostly went around Ponyville trying to get out Cutie Mark. "She said with a lost look in her face.

"Back home, it's just me, my sister, my brother, and Granny Smith. We have a huge orchard of apples, and I helped there. My sis is probably the most reliable pony alive and honest to a fault." She said.

"I lived with my parents by the river, but they were away most of the time, so I stay with my sister a lot. She is a fashion designer and is always stressed about appearing as beautiful as possible, although she is also generous. She always shouted at me every time I went home dirty." Sweetie Belle continued.

"Is that tree sap?"

"You destroyed another apple tree?"

"Your coat is all muddy, take a bath!"

They all recited what was most likely the norm back home. They sighed, "I hope we can get back." Sweetie Belle said with a pensive look. "Sombra says it is possible if we can get here then we can go back. It's only a matter of knowing how."

"I guess we won't stop searching." I told them with a smile.

"What about you?"

"Uh?" I answered back.

"What was life like where you are from?" Scootaloo asked.

"Hm, I guess I only told you the bare minimum, well from where I come from you don't exist, I don't exist." At their confused looks, I explained better. "In my world, there is no magic, no unicorns, no pegasi, and no talking ponies, there aren't any half girl half spider creatures. Basically, everything around me is new, but that doesn't mean I don't know of them. We have this game back home called Dungeons and dragons that is similar to this world. So I know a few things about this world like the creatures and races. Though things are different here, The monstrous races are more accepted here, and the lightning rails are new.

But back to my life. I was born in a different country than the one I ended up living in. Because of that, I can speak two languages." I told them.

"And what is it?" Applebloom asked, curious.

"It's called Italian, and it is the best language around. Of course, I'm incredibly biased, but what can you do?" I told them with a smirk.

"Oh yeah, then what’s it sound like?" Scootaloo said with a smile.

"Ciao Scootaloo, il mio nome è Tela." I told her evenly.

"Uh right, whatever you said." She replied, shaking her head, "You girls got anything out of that?"

"Nope."

"I'm not surprised." I told them with a small laugh, "Now, with that out of the way, we can start talking business." I told them, motioning for them to follow me. I closed the door of the room behind me and waited for the girls to sit down.

"So, what is this about? A new adventure?" Scootaloo asked excitedly.

"Something like that, remember the part of the city where we almost got attacked a year ago?" I told them, recalling the incident.

"Yeah, those varmints were after our flanks!" Applebloom said with a tinge of anger.

"Exactly, the guild found out that someone is poisoning their water supply. We don't know why, but we know that it's probably another guild. Long story short, tomorrow we can find him at the well. Then we follow him through the sewers to his base. Are you up for it?"

"yeah!" Scootaloo said, pumping her hoof into the air.

"We are up for that, Tela!" Sweetie answered energetically, Applebloom just nodded.

"Perfect then, we go out tomorrow at dawn and hide till he shows up."

Groans came from the girls, dawn is not for fillies, I guess.

Boring, when I saw movies with police working undercover to find criminals, I thought it would have been a bit more interesting. I mean technically I was a criminal too, but who cares? Anyway, we were waiting for hours under an illusionary crate Sweetie was making for us, the sun was at its zenith when someone finally approached the well without any kind of bucket.

I watched intently to see if he did anything suspicious, I saw him pouring a black viscous liquid down the well and quickly walked away. "Come on, girls, we found our guy." I told the girls.

"Finally, the waiting was killing me." Scootaloo complained, standing up.

"Uh? Are we good to go?" Sweetie asked, a bit confused. "Oh right, right, no need to be mean about it." She told the necklace.

"Come on hurry up, I know a quick way in, we should be able to reach him in seconds." I instructed them, opening one of the many secret passages around the city and jumped down into the dark, humid sewers.

We managed to catch up with the man and silently followed him. We had to walk for almost an hour before he turned into a large hole. The sewer's wall was broken open, and the tunnel stretched out too far to see the end. Already from the very start of the tunnel, we could all smell something incredibly foul, something in a state of decay, or a very nasty garbage disposal.

"Ugh, it is worse than the sewers." I said out loud.

"You can say that alright, how can that guy even come in here? I'm about to throw up…" Scootaloo said, turning a little greener. "Are we sure we want to go in there?"

"Unfortunately, we must, if not for the money, then to stop whatever he is doing here." I told her.

Quest #7 Biting more than you can chew

View Online

We carefully walked through the hole in the sewer to a pitch-black tunnel. Well, pitch-black for the girls, at least. I could see this wasn't part of the sewer anymore. The floor didn't have any place for sewage, and the ceiling was taller. It looked like a carved hallway with doors spaced on both sides. Ahead of us was the cloaked man. He never looked at the doors to his side. He was keeping his gaze on the door directly ahead. That type of intense determination made the girls and I sneaking twenty feet behind him much easier. Especially with the girls on my back, so AB's armor clinking didn't give us away.

The cloaked figure reached the end of the hallway and opened the door on the far end. He rushed inside and quickly slammed it behind himself.

"Is that their hideout?" Scootaloo whispered to me.

I cracked open the door and peeked inside the bright room. The man was gone, and I could just make out a closed door on the wall ahead.

"Nope. I think we are almost- What in the hell is this stench?" It smelt of old blood and rotting wood. The stench of stale air was overpowering, like an abandoned slaughterhouse.

"It's disgusting…" I heard Sweetie say while hearing her choking back the urge to vomit.

"Right." Applebloom replied, keeping her composure. "It's worse than the cow's barn, Dagnabbit."

The room was made out of stone bricks. The walls were covered with moss and leaked unknown liquid from the nearby sewer. Another large oak door was on the opposite wall.

The floor was made out of solid stone with a thick slimy liquid covering it. "So gross…" Sweetie lamented in a low voice. "And the smell isn't helping at all."

"Get yourself together, girls. It's best if we don't use the roof to walk, it might collapse. This place looks damn ancient." They climbed down from my abdomen to search around the room for anything that even resembles something useful. Unfortunately, the room was bare, and we didn't find any secret rooms. With that option exhausted, we went to the unopened door leading us deeper inside the dungeon.

I went first, leading the way, Sweetie right behind me, Scoot right behind her, and Applebloom at the end, watching our flanks. We made our way through the torch illuminated hallway, and to our dismay, the stench of decay became worse the farther we went inside.

We finally got to the hallway and came to a large dark wooden door. "Wait." Sweetie Belle said, stopping us. "I need to do something for one second." She waved her horn around, chanting some incantation, and shimmering green crystals appeared over her body. They quickly faded from sight.

"Is that magic armor?" Scootaloo asked, curious.

"Yes, and no, it is magic, but it's more like an invisible shield." Sweetie Belle explained. "Thanks for reminding me." She said to the horn.

"Anything else we should do?" I asked. The girls shook their heads. We opened the door, and I saw a stained red carpet on the ground. Each wall had a doorway next to a tapestry. Any images on them were completely ruined by time.

"I think we should keep right." I didn't realize the torches ended in the hallway until I heard Sweetie trip and fall on the dirty carpet. "I can't see where the guy went, so it should be safe to cast some light."

"Oh, right." Sweetie said, her horn starting to glow.

We continued down the chosen hallway and ended up in a large room. From the furniture and the remains on the floor, this was an infirmary. A dying lantern poorly lit the room, and around us, we saw dozens of beds and some old IVs, with glass bottles still attached. A dried substance was still inside. The room looked abandoned, but a puddle of wet blood was visible on the ground.

"This is a dead-end. We should head back." They nodded and swiftly followed me back to the tapestry room. The second time we went to the left, and the smell became even stronger. It burned like acid in my nostrils. At the end of the hallway, we arrived at a massive bedroom.

The smell was almost impossible to ignore, and I had to suppress a gag. I looked around. The room was ripped apart, and the four-pillared bed was crushed in the middle with the wooden poles bent inward. On the left wall, there was a giant hole with a large monster moving right at us.

The beast was obscenely obese. We could see insects swarming out from its disgusting pale flesh and a brownish substance leaking from the exposed wounds. The monster was bipedal, if barely. It had the shape of a human but that's where the similarities ended. It had holes on its shoulders that spewed out vermins and other disgusting flying creatures. The monster roared at us and started its charge. Sweetie Belle lashed out with a firebolt, which was absorbed by the creature's fat, leaving it unaffected.

"Scatter! Don't let it come near you!" I shouted at them. I went to its right, taking out my halberd, ready to attack. Scootaloo fired a bolt from her crossbow, hitting the creature in the head, making it stumble and roar in pain. It started to claw away at its face to remove the bolt doing more damage to itself than the arrow would have ever done.

The creature wobbled in our direction, and the cloud of insects started to descend on us. The girls all got bit and slashed by the disgusting cloud of insects, fortunately I managed to harden my skin enough to be unaffected, the fact the it hurt them though that I wouldn't forget. The creature ran up to me and bit my shoulder, leaving a nasty wound. I pushed the monster back before its teeth could get too far in. 'I hope that doesn't get infected.' I thought, trying not to think about the fact that this abomination even touched me.

I reared my halberd back and slashed at its head, chopping it off cleanly, metaphorically speaking. The creature's body fell with a gurgle spewing more horrid fluid and insects before disappearing in a wave of fire. I sighed in relief and holstered my weapon to my back

"What was that?" Scootaloo asked.

"A Nupperibo, a devil from the underground. Someone summoned it here." Sweetie Belle explained. "Nasty creatures, there might be more of these around."

"We should be more careful if they are powerful enough to summon demons. Follow me. I'll take point." Scootaloo said, jumping in front of me, her ears perked up, ready to sense anything nearby. We returned to the crossroad room and explored the last corridor. Upon entering it, we immediately knew something changed. The stone became much more polished, and the mold got thicker. All around us, scattered on the ground at random intervals, were little blue lanterns. Those were the only lights in the dim hall.

"Look at this place…" Scootaloo said while watching the architecture of the ruins. At our sides, we could see empty alcoves, with the remnants of smashed statues.

We continued forward until Scootaloo motioned for us to stop, and we started to look around in search of whatever made her stop. I heard a deep rumbling sound coming from above us.

"RUN!" Scootaloo shouted, galloping forward out of the hallway. We followed suit just in time to see the ceiling crashing down in the corridor behind us.

"We dodged a bullet there, thanks, Scoot." I told her with my heart still pounding from the scare.

"It's not over." She said, looking forward. In front of us, we heard heavy steps coming towards us. The creature that was coming was clearly bigger than the devil we faced before. I strained my eyes and saw that this new threat seemed to be another Nupperibo, but this one was clearly mutated. It had dozens of carnivorous plants wriggling all over it, snapping at any insect that crawled out from its skin. Under the blubber, there was something wriggling, forcing the skin to stretch and rip.

"What is that?" I asked Sweetie.

"I never saw or heard of something like this one. Prepare for anything!" She warned us, retreating to a safer range. Applebloom took the front and got ready with her axe.

APPLE BLOOM

I took out my axe and gazed at its shiny metal. I didn't want to bring it. I didn't like hurting ponies. I would have preferred to just make potions and help my friends, but in this world, it seems like fighting is the only real way to survive. I nodded confidently, maybe to reassure myself, and got ready with my shield in front of me. Slowly I walked forward to face the horrible creature that blocked our path.

"Come on, yah freak!" I shouted, prepared to take a big hit. The creature's fleshy arms bashed against my shield, but I held it back. I heard a horrible fleshy ripping sound, and something was scratching at my shield. The devil kept bashing as I saw a gigantic insect head crawl from over my shield. It struck my helmet, and the taste of steel distracted him long enough to knock them both away. Without the shield between us, I could see the centipede was crawling from a hole it ripped in the demon's chest "This thing is horrifying." I thought.

I saw a bolt from Scoot's crossbow hit the Nupperibo right in the chest. The monster continued its attack against my shield, not noticing the bolt.

"I'll keep it busy here! Use everything you have!" I shouted at them and stood my ground.

TELA

Applebloom remained in front of the creature fearlessly, and so I seized the opportunity. I reared my whole body back and slashed at the creature's upper body, drawing a lot of blood and ripping pieces off the centipede. I then watched a bolt of pure fire hitting the creature's head right between the eyes, the bolt exploded with a show of sparks and flames, and immediately the plants near the head went aflame, burning and collapsing.

"Nice one, Sweetie!" I told her without looking back as not to get the creature out of my sight. The creature then seemed to be enraged with Sweetie and started to move towards her. Applebloom intercepted it and made it trip with her shield making it smash onto the ground with a heavy thud. The creature moaned and tried to stand up. That's when Applebloom hacked at it with her axe, and Scootaloo fired another bolt.

The axe got buried deep into its flesh, making blood ooze out of the injury while the bolt embedded itself deep into the body, injuring it further. The creature seemed to be pretty weak at this point, we then heard some bells ringing and Sweetie uttering words under her breath, and we saw nothing happening.

"Son of a bitch!" We heard her swear before looking back into her floating book. Scootaloo snickered while aiming her weapon. I then sliced it up when it tried to stand up.

I saw a bolt flying past the creature and a very flustered Scootaloo who apparently slipped onto the wet and mossy floor, missing the creature, I then heard another giggle this time from Sweetie. "I guess they can have fun while fighting devils, who knew?" Meanwhile, Applebloom's axe bounced off of it, seemingly having hit one of the centipedes inside the body, causing the attack to deal no damage.

The creature started to attack once again, the plants tried to grasp at me, but I managed to fend them off while another centipede bounced off of Applebloom's shield. I sighed in relief and got ready to hit the creature yet again. I was ready to hit when I had to retreat for a centipede busted out and almost bit me. Applebloom, fortunately, didn't have such problems and hit the creature in the neck, making it gurgle up blood and ichor. After that, the monster fell flat onto the ground, seemingly dead.

"Is it dead?" Applbeloom asked wearily.

"I fucking hope so." I replied, poking the creature to see if it was twitching or anything like that. The monster suddenly started to deflate, tons of blood and ichor came out from its body, "yuck yuck yuck!" we heard Sweetie shout trying to retreat while touching the least amount of the liquid as possible. Then six surviving centipedes crawled out of it, and without any hesitation jumped at us. I cleaved one in half immediately, Applebloom got one on her shield and then bashed it onto the ground, killing it, Scootaloo fired a bolt that impaled one to the ground while Sweetie let loose a volley of arcane missiles that killed the rest.

"That was close. What were those things anyway?" Scootaloo asked.

"I don't know, sorry, girls." Sweetie said, looking down.

"No problem, they were fairly similar to normal centipedes, if they were as big as a dwarf that is." I told them, poking the dead beast. "And this one doesn't even disappear like the other."

"The devil was also very different from the one before. Does that happen often?" Scootaloo asked yet again.

"No, this is weird. Nupperibo are not supposed to have plants on them. The insects were technically alright. They normally are much smaller, though." Mused Sweetie Belle. "Something is really wrong here."

"We will probably find more about this the deeper we go. Not like we can go back now…" I looked sadly at the completely sealed entrance. "Like before, come on."

We fell back in line and continued forward, the hall around us started slowly to become much more detailed, and this time the statues in the alcoves were present. They resembled some kind of weird alien with an extremely peculiar head. We didn't know anything about them, so we just moved on.

"I didn't think that a structure this big could remain hidden from the city itself." Applebloom said, looking around with awe.

"Careful, I hear something." We strode in the darkness following Scootaloo and trying to be as stealthy as possible. We heard a flap of wings coming from further in, we slowly walked forward while all around us we could hear, and I could see, trickles of some liquid coming down from the ceiling and splashing into puddles, the floor made wet sounds and sometimes groaned from the wear of time.

We reached what was once the hall of the hospital. Around us, there were many hallways, most of them completely submerged with rubble and impossible to traverse. There was a counter with two skeletons on our right, one sitting on a chair, and the other was sprawled on the counter. Both were wearing a plague doctor vest, ruined by time but still recognizable. All around us, there were hundreds of broken bottles and many dried puddles of some substance.

I heard in my mind some kind of gibberish, a terrible tongue that made me immediately jump to full alert. I started scanning around the room to find whatever made such an unnatural sound. "What was that?" Applebloom said, reading her shield.

"Dunno, it is very weird, though." Scootaloo continued putting her back to Applebloom's.

"Infernal, a devil or a demon is nearby." Sweetie Belle said, looking around in the dark room.

"What did it say?"

"That we are all going to die."

Suddenly the creature arrived from above us. It was a slender humanoid creature with hundreds of barbed needles covering its body. It had deep glowing eyes that, for some reason, weren't easy to track even in the dark. It immediately started to attack me, I hastily deflected a tail attack and a slash, but the last one got me good in the arm and drew blood.

"Damn it all!" I heard Scootaloo say while hearing the clacking of an arrow hitting the wall.

I indulged my rage and gathered the strength that allowed me to defeat the spider queen. With a shout of anger, I slashed the devil in the chest. Unfortunately, the cut was shallow, and the damage minimal.

"Girls, I lost my shield. It slipped up from the fetlock help!" We hear Applebloom say while she was fumbling in the darkness.

Immediately a light shone from Sweetie Belle, "There it is!" She shouted, pointing at the devil. Applebloom in the meantime managed to put the shield back on while mumbling something about making it better.

The horrible sounds came back, and the devil jumped away from me. Before it could though, I hit it with my halberd injuring it further. After that, the devil spat flames in its hand and hurled it at me, hitting me in the chest. The damage was laughable at best. "Is this all? Fucking bitch!" I shouted at it. An arrow flew from behind us and hit the devil in the chest, making it roar in pain.

"You don't like magic, do you?" Scootaloo told it.

"Eat this!" Applebloom shouted. She pointed the shielded foreleg outstretching it towards the devil, a sudden click made the shield open up in half, and a fast-approaching metallic apple hit the devil right in the face making it fall down on its back, clutching its now bleeding nose. Immediately after, we heard Sweetie Belle saying something in her arcane tongue, and immediately the wounds of the devil became even worse than they once were. Sweetie Belle hoof pumped the air, very happy with what she did.

The devil shot up on its feet and charged the girls behind me. First, it tried to hit Applebloom, puncturing her leg with its long barbed tail drawing a lot of blood and a pained scream from the filly. The devil extracted the tail, and a puddle of blood started forming under Applebloom.

"Applebloom!" Scootaloo shouted. She immediately had to avoid an attack from the devil before she could worry about her.

"Ah'm fine, don't worry!" Applebloom told her.

The devil then tried to hit Sweetie Belle, but she dodged it completely, remaining unscathed. Scootaloo then went and put some distance between her and the devil, narrowingly avoiding yet another vicious blow from it. She turned around and fired a bolt to it, this time hitting it in the shoulder.

I charged up a powerful attack with my halberd and hit the devil in the back, opening a huge gash over it, unfortunately. Yet again, the damage seemed to be only superficial. Applebloom took a flask from her bag and injected the liquid inside right on her flank. Immediately the wound started to regenerate, and in seconds it disappeared.

Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes, and her eyes flashed purple. Suddenly the devil started clawing at its head as if in pain and shot a look of pure hatred towards her. Infuriated, the devil slashed left and right, missing almost everything apart from a hit against Sweetie's chest that opened a bloody wound on her. She cried out in pain but composed herself, quickly shooting the devil a glare.

Once again, Scootaloo shot a dart to the devil, but this time, it seemed that she hit something vital, and the devil knew it. It clutched its side, hissing in hate and pain. The devil's legs started to wobble clearly. We were doing a lot of damage. I abused its own weakness and struck it with a shout full of hate and anger to it. The cut was superficial yet again and barely registered. 'I really need a fucking magic weapon! Pezzo di ferro inutile!'

Applebloom jumped away from the devil and launched another apple at it hitting it in the side of the head, making it stumble and fall to the ground on its knees. To add more to that, Sweetie fired a volley of arcane missiles puncturing it and drawing a ton of blood from it. The devil was now out of breath and barely clinging to life. The strange words came out again, and we all looked to Sweetie.

"He says that he was paid. He had a contract. He will run away and never return if we spare him." She translated. "He says he has a wife and children, and something else I didn't catch." She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, he has a wife and some children in a cage over there, and he is offering us to eat them instead of him, uh." She translated.

"How about fuck you?" Scootaloo said, shooting a bolt right between its eyes, killing it, immediately after the body disappeared, and we all sat down to rest for a bit. "What about the cage?" Applebloom asked.

"He was lying." I told them, "I can see in the dark, there is no cage here."

"That's good. Imagine having to escort citizens out while we fight. Need some help with that wound, Sweetie?" Scoot asked her in concern.

"Nah, it's mostly fine. I'll patch it up in time."

"We can stop for some time, catch our breath, come on, I'll keep watch, rest yourself." I did as I told them. I watched the makeshift camp and stood on alert for any more devils or monsters around the hall. This time I also looked up for any more nasty surprises. Fortunately, no one arrived to kill us, and Sweetie's injury was taken care of. With that done, we continued walking deeper still into the hospital.

We passed next to an ancient sign on which unfortunately any and all writing were eroded by time, it pointed to several directions, to our right, left and back from where we came from. Every other hallway was completely blocked by rubble; thus, we had to go right and hope for the best. "I don't like it, girls. I swear I heard something else when the ceiling collapsed." Scootaloo said.

"Are you sure about it?" Applebloom asked.

"Totally, but I can't nail down what made that sound. Shit, I knew I had to study harder in Rare creatures class." She said with lightly bumping her hoof on her head.

"Don't worry, Scoot, we will surely go back, and then you can study all you like." Sweetie said reassuringly.

"Indeed, don't worry, Scoot. We will always say that you are the best ranger around." I told her with an affectionate head pat.

"Thanks, girls." She whispered with a lot of embarrassment. "Heads up, I see the light." She said immediately after pointing in front of us. Barely a hundred meters ahead of us we could make out a faint light, we moved closer and finally noticed that it was the entrance to a vast room, the light came from tens of blue lighted torches hanging around the whole room. The room seemed to have been used as a storage, for there were hundreds of broken bottles scattered on the floor and the remains of iron scaffolds. Only two of them were still up, one directly attached to the wall where the entrance was and the other at the wall directly in front of us.

We walked into the room, looking around for any kind of threat. We stopped right in the middle and were almost ready to lower our guard when a suave voice came from nowhere. It was polished and charismatic. "Oh my, what do we have here? A half spider and three little horses? How interesting." The voice said, immediately after the lights became even brighter and the room lit up completely, in the farthest part of the room there was a lone figure sitting atop a throne of statues, next to her there was a weird machine made out of flesh and teeth.

The feminine figure was for lack of a better term gorgeous, even at a distance you could see that she was truly beautiful. It wore a tight leathery sport bra and some barely useful pants, everything she wore was purposefully there to be attractive and it did a good job at that. Her beauty though didn't mean I would forgive her for what she did to us so far, there was space for only one beautiful bitch out there and that was me.

The machine next to it though was another thing altogether. Made out of flesh moaning and spitting unknown liquids while seemingly chewing, disgusting. It had a pinkish exterior with a fiery red internal organs which were somewhat visible through the skin, other than that we could see barely chewed bones and pieces of skin and other horrible things inside which were slowly made into some silvery coins.

"Who are you?" I asked her unsheathing my halberd.

"Wouldn't you like to know, little spider? My name is of no concern to lab rats," She waved her hand in the air. "Xenermoth, darling, come here and smack these fools so I can research them." She said. Immediately after a loud and frankly high pitched roar came from the ceiling, a shadow ran down the aisle behind us and stared us down, it was a four-legged creature, it's scales were black as onyx, and its eyes were a piercing acidic green, it had a pair of wings on its back and acid was dripping from its half-closed teeth filled mouth.

"Fuck me, a dragon." I said with no little fear. Dragons were extremely dangerous. "Girls, don't underestimate its size. Dragons are always dangerous!"

"Mistress said you shall be her new experiments, so be it." He said, flaring his wings outward for intimidation. Before we could even move, Scoot passed to the offensive and shot a dart straight into Xenormoth's torso dealing great damage to him if his pained look was anything to go by. Xenormoth reared up in a roar of anger, but before he could even move, Sweetie muttered arcane words which only slightly pained the dragon.

Xenormoth reared up, breathing in a lot of air and then exhaling it all in one go. A sickly mist of green came towards us, and we were left to face it. The green cloud encompassed us all. I shouted in pain for the acid eating at my flesh, Sweetie was miraculously saved by some kind of black quartz that encompassed her body, which managed to block some of the mist, yet she was badly hurt by it.

Applebloom didn't make any sound. She simply fell down on her side with an incredibly nasty burn on her neck, which burned away the fur leaving behind exposed red flesh. Scootaloo, on the other hand, rolled away from the mist, getting hit only slightly. Still, she had some severe wounds on herself. I immediately knelt down and searched into Applebloom's satchel, hoping for another vial of healing potion. Fortunately, it was there, and I immediately gave it to her. She coughed up but fortunately opened her eyes. "AJ? Is that you?" She weakly whispered.

"I'm sorry Bloom, it is my fault you got hurt. Rest now, please." I pleaded to her. She nodded her head and went back down onto the ground. I stood up immediately and felt my rage building up to unholy levels. I screamed like a banshee and slashed the dragon right in the face making two teeth fly out and giving him a deep wound. "I'll fucking kill you!"

"Wait, Tela! He is mind-controlled. It's not his fault!" Sweetie said.

"How do we make him snap out of it?" Scoot asked her.

"I-m-mistress? No! Yes?" Xenormoth started to say, confused-looking left and right.

"Hei los aan Dovah. Hein zin los vepok naal hei kos imaar naal ek! Gestin hinmaar!" Scootaloo shouted to Xenormoth, immediately his eyes darted to us, and in them, we saw a bit of recognition, then they widened as if he realized, and then they looked at the devil with a fury no mortal could withstand.

“Zu’u nox hei, Zu’u los krod fah fahdon, Zu’u fen frey krii daar zaunig.” He said bowing his head to Scootaloo.

"Might wanna repeat that I think I lost some of it, sorry not really that fluent in draconic." She said with a light blush.

"I thank you, I shall help you against this devil. She is a succubus, be very careful." He repeated this time in a language we could understand.

"Impossible! How did you free yourself, useless dragon? I really have to do everything here." She said, immediately she took flight with her wings and stopped in front of us, she swayed her hips seductively and blew a kiss towards Scoot, who promptly made a disgusted face and shot a dart into the succubus's body. The latter screamed in pain and wrenched the dart free pouring blood on the floor. "Damnable beast, you shall serve me!"

Sweetie Belle made another incantation, and a chain of lightning came forth from her hooves, hitting the succubus in the chest, making her shout in agony. Xenormoth ran and bit her in the arm with such force that he tore it away from her leaving her with only one arm and bleeding profusely from the wound. I followed his example and attacked her with my halberd. I hit her in the chest, dragging the blade over her breasts, cutting one of them open, making her cry both in rage and pain.

"I will be back, damnable mortals. I shall have my revenge!" She shouted and immediately disappeared. I remained with my guard high until a minute or so passed, then I finally sat down onto the cold floor and rested for a while. In all of this, I took Applebloom in my arms and gently put her on my abdomen, being careful of not making her injury worse.

"I'm sorry for what I've done." Xenormoth said with a downcast look.

"I understand, it wasn't your fault, but mine. I should have told them to spread out." I said, feeling tears coming up, "This is just like the circus. I failed them." I couldn't handle thinking about it anymore. I started to cry immediately after I felt two sets of hooves coming to hug me and a trembling one that touched my back.

"It's not your fault Tela. You did what you could. It's nopony's fault that we found a Succubus here. Please don't cry. You are basically our big sister." Sweetie Belle said, holding back tears.

"She is right, you know? You are the only one that ever cared so much for us here. Without you, we would be already dead." Scootaloo replied confidently. "And, thanks to you, we can study, we can learn so many cool and awesome things. Yes, the adventure is dangerous, but hey, without any danger, what's the point, right? You told us we would go home, and I believe you, so stand up and bring us there."

"S-she is right. Please, don't cry. Your hiccups make my stomach upset hehe." Applebloom weakly said with a strained laugh. That did it. I started to laugh a bit while also crying, 'Fucking teenagers, I swear.' I thought to myself. 'Get up, you idiot. They look up to you.' I dried up my tears and stood up.

"Let's." I told them, "Thank you, girls, I owe you a lot. Come on. We have to find a way out."

"Before we forget, Xenormoth, could you melt down that weird machine?" Sweetie Belle asked him.

"It will be my pleasure to destroy anything that was hers." He said with glee. He immediately breathed acid onto it, destroying it in seconds. "Come my friends, I know of a passage the succubus used to come and go to the surface. Follow me." He said, motioning us with his wing.

"Wait, you are hurt!" Scootaloo shouted.

"So are you. The faster we go to the surface, the faster we can bring you all to a hospital, one that is not abandoned at least."

“What?” I said dazed, for a second I swore I saw something, in the dark. “I-I” My vision started to go out of focus, dark spots started to creep from the edges of my vision and in no time I was completely out of it.

When I opened my eyes again I was in a different room, I looked around me and noticed that I was inside a room adjacent to the one where we fought, the girls were on the ground moaning in pain and I was covered in a gelatinous substance. I immediately reached down for them noticing that I was a lot taller than before, I decided to check later. The girls came first.

“What even happened? I have no memories of it, fuck.” I thought, if I started to have memory loss or other brain problems that would be bad. I checked on them and fortunately they didn’t have any external injury.

“You.” I heard a deep, calculating and cold voice speak up. I looked around hastily, trying to identify the source, and I found it in Sweetie Belle.

“What?” I asked surprised.

“You, spider creature. Get this body in a functioning state, a king doesn’t go around in a broken vessel.” The voice said again. Once I looked closer I noticed that Sweetie’s horn was partially red and her coat was darker.

“Get out of her, what are you? A demon, a devil?” I said grabbing her firmly. “Know this, if you hurt her in any way, there is no plane of existence you can hide in from me.” I told him, my skin started to become black and quite hard.

“You fool, I’m no demon. I am-” He started to cough, gargle and finally slumped down in my arms. Immediately after Sweetie’s head went up and she talked in her normal voice, her horn turned white again and her coat was once again pure and prisitne.

“Sorry about that, I don’t know how it happened I swear.” She said almost crying there and there.

“Oh no, no don’t worry. I’m just glad you are okay. Now please go check on the others as well, I’m no medic.” I told her and put her down.

I looked around the room again, there was basically nothing there except a desk with a drawer and a pedestal, both empty at first glance.

“You are finally awake.” Another voice said this time coming from the room adjacent.

“Why do voices keep cropping up out of nowhere?” I asked myself, this one sounded familiar though.

“It’s me, Xenormoth. Be not afraid.” He said coming into sight, he had a… weird look in his eyes.

“What happened?” I asked him, I just couldn’t figure out what happened in that room.

“You started to walk towards this wall, when asked about why you gave no answer, then out of nowhere you demolished the wall completely and entered the room, the ponies were immediately after you. Then you started to change. There was something on that pedestal although I couldn’t see it clearly.” He stopped for a bit and inhaled sharply.

“Whatever it was, it changed you, you grew a lot and even shed your skin, unfortunately it is now gone, turned to dust the instant it left your body. A mist then poured itself into the ponies and they fell unconscious now, here we are.”

I looked back to the pedestal in the center of the room, laid onto it there was a strange purplish gem, it was roughly the size of my hand and it was unnaturaly sparkling in the dark room. When I got near it it pulsed with a faint light like a heartbeat.

I did not dare touch it least it was cursed or a trap. I instead waited for Sweetie Belle to give me the clear after she checked the girls, fortunately the blast or whatever happened didn't do anything to them, they were fine but uncoscious for now.

"They will be fine..." Sweetie said, she was tired and it showed, her shoulder were slouched and walked aroundas if her legs weighed a ton. "Let me see..." She said, she started to feebly chant some words then her eyes flased green, after a minute or so she reported to me. "The gem should be safe, I couldn't see any traps or curse on it, although it is very very powerful."

I nodded to her and finally grabbed the gem, it filled me with a faint weird emotion, one I hardly even recognized. I just shrugged and put it in my backpack.

"We will wait for them, this place is more or less safe after all." I said. "Xenormoth will you keep us company?"

"Yes, I owe you this much. Let us wait."

And so we waited.

Tela's Tales

by Firefoxino

Chapter 1 A new world, and a new world.

Quest #1 Exit the forest!

Quest #2 Travel To The City

Quest #3 A chance arrangement [EDITED]

Quest #4 The circus!

Christmas Quest! [EDITED]

Quest #5 Eyeng monsters

Quest#6: Down the spider hole

Time passes

Quest #7 Biting more than you can chew