Gentle Repose - 4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH
Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms
Staring into the rapidly approaching gray-white wall of ice and snow bearing down on us with such weight and terror as to remind me of the memory images of Neighponese tsunami, I gained an immediate love for pegasi. I had loved them before, but now that I saw natural weather rage grinding across the grasslands, eagerly sprinting across the vast distance to smash me aside like mere rubbish atop a desk...
I could feel nothing but empathy for those who had not grown up in controlled weather systems.
“Keep moving,” Fell called urgently. “We can make it to those ruins before the storm hits!”
His urgent words snapped my attention away from the approaching storm, drawing them to the rough spot where Fell was galloping full force towards the crumbling walled fortress in the distance.
As it had gotten colder over the last few days, Fell had complained he didn't’ want to drain the crystals which powered his rather robustly enchanted armor on simple warmth spells. I had offered to cast one on him myself but we agreed it was best for me to reserve all of my magic for when we absolutely needed it. Then I reminded him he had been given a Knight’s cloak, and he had swiftly put it on.
Which made it damn near impossible to spot him. Fell had activated the cloak’s chameleon spell, hoping to hide from griffons to make them focus on me. While that was a wise tactical move which allowed us a counter ambush, the enchantment’s effects made it almost impossible to want to look at the odd rippled distortion around the cloak. Even if you know where Fell was, your brain just didn’t want to let your eyes point at him.
“Are you sure we can make it?” I called fearfully.
“What are you afraid of? I’m the one who will freeze to death,” Fell pointed out.
“While magically protected,” I began, “it is possible for ice to form within my phylactery, damaging it, possibly destroying it, but at the minimum interfering with you know, my soul, basically.”
“Ah… Good point,” Fell said apologetically pausing for a moment. “We can make the gate house for sure. Maybe the keep itself.”
I squinted off into the distance, trying to make out as much of the details about the approach to the ruin as I could.
The fortress sat atop a square mound of earth which had been created via clever landscaping to provide the fortress with an elevated position above the grasslands surrounding them. The walls had crumbled away quite a bit, showing the structure to be clearly abandoned, but also hiding much of the fort’s designs. The gatehouse itself was in far better shape and appeared to have been hexagonal at one point in time but now was a few walls and maybe one intact roof perched at the end of a dry moat, with one rotting but safe enough looking log and plank bridge leading to the gates themselves.
I supposed the griffons needed the gate for cargo, rather than personnel as the bridge and the space the gates would have been were more than wide enough for two carts to come and go at once. That meant there would be a place to store and inspect carts inside. Which meant there probably was some form of shelter in the gatehouse. Or at the very least…
“If we don’t find shelter before the storm hits, we should set up the tent and use one of the walls as a wind block!” I called.
“Good plan, I was going to suggest that myself. Keep moving!” Fell insisted.
The two of us put as much speed into our hooves as we could, the storm inching ever closer. We had about twenty minutes if I was judging distance correctly. Would that be enough?
High King’s Forest - Griffon Kingdoms
4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH
Twenty kilometers due south by southwest, the same storm bore down on a second group of ponies. Eleven pegasi and one unicorn huddled inside a shallow cave in an earthen hillside. The dark space held enough room for everypony to lay down, and for a fire to be lit within the center of the cave. Finding the old animal den had been a stroke of luck on the part of these Prench soldiers.
The pegasi all wore identical uniforms, the dark olive green, white trimmed, hardened leather armor of the Prench Air Guard protected only the most vital places. A flexible cuirass, marked with the prench flag on the back and each individual's name and rank on the barrel, a padded cap more for warmth than protection, goggles, and a full set of grieves along with tough boots and nothing more. These pegasi were scouts, meant to fly long distances quickly, cover all manner of terrain, and locate anything the Empire wanted to find.
They did not need more protection than their hardened leather provided. No aerial warrior enjoys being weighed down more than they must be, and each scout had quite the arsenal to carry with them already.
Each scout was equipped with a bandoleer, festooned with various arcane grenades, several air to ground bombs, an arcane lightning rod with which to better guide a bolt of lightning, two rapid fire miniature crossbows attached to each bracer, and an entrenching tool. All of that and their field kits, a blanket, canteen, survival pack, and any mission specific gear they had requested.
Not a one of them wished for more armor. Who wants to stand and fight anyways? It’s best to fly past your enemy and leave behind a wall of flames.
The group’s leader, Sous-Lieutenant Blitzwing, walked between his troops, inspecting their makeshift camp as it was built.
“Corporal, dig the chimney at a shallower angle, the wind will blow right down something that vertical,” he chastised. “Sergeant, get that rear wall dug out further. We may be here for some time. It’s unlikely they have gotten any further than this on hoof and this will make a good base of operations to search the area from.
“You, Patches, string a tarp up over the cave entrance.”
Sunlit’s mismatched ears fell flat, lips pulling back in a snarl as he was addressed by the nickname the two squads had forced upon him.
“That’s not my name!” He growled.
Blitzwing rolled his eyes and called, “Does anypony present give a flying buck about his opinion?”
“Sir, no sir!” The near-dozen pegasi called in unison.
Sunlit’s empty eye twitched in rage behind his eye patch, concealing the anger from the Sous-Lieutenant, and likely sparing him a verbal beat down.
“You’re in the army now, Patches,” Blitzwing shouted, switching into the classic officer’s command voice. “You hear an order, you follow it, or Steward so help me, your secondhoof plot will be feeding the grass! If I do not see you putting a tarp up over the entrance in the next fifteen seconds, you’re going to be walking tomorrow, and the day after that. I’ll bet that will make whoever's scheduled to carry your fat plot around real happy. Now move it!”
Sunlit sneered angrily at Blitzwing. Blitzwing scowled back with the full force of a seasoned officer who was many years past taking even a modicum of shit. After several moments, Sunlit’s head tipped down, defeated.
“Yes, sir,” he grumbled, starting for the cave’s entrance as ordered.
As the patchwork stallion awkwardly limped his way to the entrance, the team’s final member swooped into the cave’s mouth, landing on her four hooves so gracefully that her squadmates couldn’t help but to give her a jealous glare.
The newcomer wasn’t a pony, or rather, not completely a pony. She was a Felin, a kind of hippogriff born from a pegasus mother. Nopony quite knew the reason but hippogriffs with pegasus blood always seemed to inherit their father's lion half rather than their avian half, producing what amounted to a pegasi with a griffon’s large powerful wings, a body that while pony in shape moved with catlike grace, along with a lion’s tail, eyes, fangs, and taste for meat.
Like all pony-griffon hybrids living in Prance, Light Step was something of a social outcast. Half of her blood belonged to ‘the enemy’, and as no Prench mare would willingly copulate with a griffon, her very existence was a reminder of the raids carried out on their people.
Which is why she always got stuck with the duty assignments nopony wanted.
“Bucking great… She’s back,” Sun muttered to himself.
“Sir! I’ve found them,” Light reported eagerly, snapping a salute. “I recommend we attack immediately.”
“Settle down, Soldier,” Blitzwing ordered. “Unless you’ve seen the storm decide to turn around and go home. We are staying in this cave until it passes at the very least. Now report. Where were they?”
Light frowned, shaking some of the snow off her sandy coat. “I picked up an aura which matched what we were told the litch’s would be like fifteen kilometers north, then followed it to a ruined griffon fortress some seven kilometers from there.
“It’s very clear that they wish to hole up in the old fortress to weather the storm, sir. But we have a problem. They definitely know they are being pursued because the changeling has an active camouflage spell up and running, and the fortress appears to have spent its last days as a munitions factory. They might be hoping to fortify their position with any weapons the griffons missed when abandoning the possession.
“If we attack now we can get them before they have time to dig in. There are only thirteen of us, sir. Two can definitely hold out in a fortified position against our number.”
Blitzwing frowned, weighing his options. He had never much liked Light Step, but he knew she was a good scout, and fully put her heart into her soldiering. He trusted her. She was also more seasoned than her rank would suggest, having ‘mysteriously’ never been considered for promotion or decoration.
But on the other hoof… “A good suggestion, but our weather magic will not buy us enough time in the storm to fight any extended engagement. Tomorrow, you will lead three others to map the fortress and see if they are digging in. If they are, we’ll come up with a proper plan of at-”
“No, she’s right you need to go now!” Sunlit interrupted.
“What did I tell you about interrupting, Patches?!” Blitzwing snapped angrily.
“I don't give a buck what you said. She’s right. Repose is a necromancer, and that's an old ruined keep. If you give him an hour, it won't be thirteen on two, it will be thirteen on fifty. By morning, it will be thirteen against several hundred.”
Light Step winced. “That’s a fair argument, sir. There will be plenty of bones to work with around any keep. We both know how well an undead blitz works.”
Blitzwing grimaced as his mind flashed back six years to the rebellion of a Master Necromancer who had publicly refused to follow the Steward’s orders. Three battalions died that day, and the only living pony on the other side had been the Necromancer. He’d had only six hours to prepare. Inside of Prance’s largest catacomb.
Blitz doubted their target could raise as many useable minions as quickly as that Master had. But he knew Repose was old, powerful, and habitually collected unusual spells and arcane lore. If he could even work a hundredth as fast...
“Scouts!” Blitz called. “It’s showtime! War gear only. We go in hot and fast. Light Step, you’re marking our target. Everypony else, when she spots them, move in and carpet bomb the area. Zephyr, drop Patches off so he can provide artillery support from the ground. If the bombing is ineffective, stick to strafing runs. If the storm gets bad, hole up inside the keep. We will regroup there after the engagement is over. Move!”
Gentle Repose - 4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH
Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms
The first wave of snow fell in a near-blinding curtain that plunged the early afternoon into darkness and was accompanied by howling winds that pushed at my left side, seeking to topple me over. The terrifying part is the storm was not yet fully upon us, this was merely the dregs which blew at the front of the storm. My hooves thumped against the wooden bridge, run slowed to a jog to avoid being blown over by the incredibly strong winds.
Like, insanely incredibly strong winds. I’d tried to put up a shield, but the sheer amount of ice crystals hitting it had ablated the shield away within minutes. It would take far to much energy to keep one up long enough to reach safety, let alone weather the storm.
The two of us had just passed the halfway point, and could now see the gatehouse had half of the lower roof intact. It would shelter us well enough from the blizzard.
Was this a blizzard? I wasn’t sure. I’d never seen one before. Pegasi never let winter storms get that bad.
“Come on! We’re almost there,” Fell urged.
I grit my teeth and kept pressing onwards. The cold bit annoyingly deep into my flesh, combining with the wind’s push to make for a stressful gauntlet to slog through. Each step harder than the last as more and more snow and ice crystals covered the bridge. The wind’s river-like crushing force growing ever stronger as the seconds flew by.
The bridge began to creak and sway. The weight of the snow and the wind’s unrelenting force pushing it side to side. The aged timbers creaking and groaning like a beast in pain.
“Run!” I shouted, voice nearly lost in the wind.
The two of us took off as quickly as the wind would permit. The bridge swaying like a ship at sea, threatening to throw us off. The end of the bridge seemed to grow further away from us as we ran until at last, my hooves touched solid ground once more.
By the time we reached the gatehouse six steps later, the winds crushing force gave one great heave and a sharp crack from deep within the bridge managed to pierce the howling winds before the bridge groaned, leaned violently with the wind, slid down slightly, and then stopped, leaning at a sixty-degree angle.
I turned to Fell, giving him a relieved look. “Thank goodness we weren't thrown into th-”
I stopped dead, eyes widening in terror. The second hand on my watch was moving erratically.
“What’s wrong?” Fell asked urgently.
Not wanting to interfere with any magical process which might be malfunctioning I fumbled with my cloak’s collar with my hooves, pulling the watch out as gingerly but swiftly as I could manage before popping the lid open.
The second hand twitched, jumping five seconds back from the spot it should have been in an odd rhythmic pattern. Please don’t be broken! It’s not too cold yet, nothing should have seeped into the mechanism, the environmental warding I put into it couldn’t possibly be this poo-
Wait a damn second, the pattern of twitches looked familiar. Short, long, long, short, long…
This was code! Morse code. So many questions flashed through my mind. Who could be powerful enough to breach the arcane tampering defenses on my phylactery? How did they know where I was right now? What motive did they have to use this means of communication rather than teleport and deliver it in per-
The buck am I doing!? This has to be important, I should be decoding the damn thing.
Squinting at the second hand I did my best to decipher its movements having unfortunately missed some of the message.
I-N-G-A-R-T-I-L-L-R-Y-S-T-R-I-K-E-R-U-N
I frowned slightly, trying to separate the words from the jumble of letter-
OH BUCK!
“Run!” I screamed, putting all the speed I could into a headlong sprint towards the keep.
“What why?” Fell asked, confusion and panic mixing in his voice as I sprinted away.
“Incoming barrage!” I yelled over my shoulder at the blurry patch of air.
How in the blazes of Tartarus did the knights coordinate when using those things!? I needed to know!
The blurry patch suddenly took off like a rocket, catching up to me in a matter of moments. I felt Fell’s arm grab my back and start to lift me up, arm becoming visible as it left the cloak’s bubble.
Then the gatehouse exploded.
A fiery blue cloud erupted from the ruined stonework, pulsating and growing as the flames filled the crumbling structure. The heavy snow rushed away from the thunderous roar, making the shockwave visible for the split second before it slammed into us, throwing Fell and I several meters.
Then the second hit. The third. Fourth, fifth… An uncountablely rapid series of explosions reduced the gatehouse to a pile of broken stones within less than a second.
Ears ringing, I slowly stood back up, reflexively casting a mending spell to restore my blown eardrums. What in Tartarus had shelled us? I tilted my head back, looking up in the vain hope of piercing the white sheets of snow that had turned midday into midnight.
Eyes straining, I spotted three shapes moving in the skies above. Griffons? It had to be.
“Get up,” I shouted over the winds, pulling Fell to his hooves. “It’s griffons! They are still here.”
Fell popped back up like the explosion had thrown him to his hooves. “Move into the keep! Break their line of sight. They can’t have enough ordinance to level the entire place!” He shouted, turning and sprinting for one of the keep’s boarded up windows.
“Uh, Fell that’s boarded-”
Fell put on a burst of speed, then jumped, twisting to hit the old wood shoulder first. The boards exploded into splinters, the rotten wood not even considering the concept of withstanding the impact, allowing Fell to sail cleanly through the arched window and into the keep.
Just before I could be impressed, a loud metallic clang rang out from the room accompanied by an “OW!” from Fell.
Not wanting to be caught in the bombing griffon’s next pass, I ran up to the window, grabbed the icy ledge and pulled myself through. The room I found myself in seemed to be a large forage. While I didn’t have time to thoroughly inspect the large room’s contents, I did see Fell bent over an anvil, having landed belly first on the steel brick.
“Ooooo!” I hissed in sympathy pain.
The ground just outside the room exploded. The stone wall flew inwards, throwing Fell and I with it in a shower of shrapnel and rubble. I felt my back slam into the opposite wall before I slid down into a crumpled heap.
I immediately jumped up, pulling my watch out to verify it was intact, pure terror washing my mind aside as I realized just how easily I could die here. It wasn’t until I held the watch in my hooves that I realized I was moving, so it had to be intact.
Completely distracted by this miracle, I let out a relieved manic laugh. Fell suddenly pulled me to my left, making me almost drop my watch.
“Get inside!” He bellowed.
“We are!” I dumbly retorted.
“We were, this is outside now. Move!” He shot back, pulling me into the keep’s dark and empty hallway.
Fell continued to half pull half drag me for another few moments until the shock wore off and I pulled free of his grip, falling into step behind him.
“What if they collapse this place on top of us?” I asked worriedly, a series of explosions and collapsing rock structures punctuating my fearful question.
“We didn’t exactly have time for a better plan!” Fell snapped. “Look, we broke their line of sight. We pick a random direction and leave, then just run and hope they don’t spot us.”
“Maybe we can take a few down if we find an exterior window,” I mused, not wanting to just run for the hills and hope we weren't spotted. “No offense, but I don't like our odds.”
“Neither do I! I don't have any weapons designed for anti-air! All I got is this single shot heavy weapon,” He grumbled.
“Don’t you know how to fire a spell bolt, or cast a ray spell?” I asked in shock.
“No! I don’t. I know three spells, none of them are offensive,” he hissed.
Wishing I could see even his body language under the cloak I asked, “Why are you whispering?”
“Because I think I hear hoof steps down the hall,” he warned.
“But that’s ridiculous, we’re being attacked by griff-”
“Doesn't mean they don't have a few hippogriffs,” Fell interrupted.
Oh. Yes, that was a very good point. Not wanting to cast any of the combat spells I could remember indoors, I tried to think of anything I could use as a weapon besides the scintillating ray spell I knew. While a potent weapon, it wasn’t exactly something to use in close quarters.
Of course! The Mage Rods I’d taken from the constable who attacked Fell!
I stopped running long enough to reach into my cloak’s pocket and retrieve the bracer with its attached rods. I should probably have been wearing it this entire time, but it’s remarkably hard to casually bear arms when you haven’t done so in three centuries.
“What are you doing?” Fell hissed urgently, his blurred out shape suggesting he had turned around to look at me.
“Arming myself,” I replied, buckling the bracer into place with my telekinesis and drawing the concussion rod.
“Oh, good plan. You should keep those ready from now on,” Fell urged.
I nodded. “I kn-”
With a chemical hiss, the hallway erupted into flickering red light. I had a half second to take in the sight of a flare bouncing off the wall next to me before Fell tackled me to the ground. The metallic ping of a crossbow rang out just above my ear, a loud hiss and sulphuric stench coming from the wall as the bolt’s head dissolved into an acidic compound, eating a hole in the stone wall.
I rolled out from under Fell as he sprang up, and fired a concussive blast from my rod down the hall to strike-
An Air Guard Scout? What?!
The Scout took the blast squarely in the barrel and collapsed in a heap dazed but not stunned. Fell leveled the combo axe and pulled the tiller. The axe’s head split open, the blades swinging out forming a vertical crossbow head which disappeared behind a shimmering blue aura for a split second as the weapon fired, the sharp metallic sound of a sledgehammer striking iron echoing deafeningly in the hallway.
The flare’s red light shimmered off the half meter long iron spike lodged in the wall behind the scout. Just as I thought Fell missed, the Scout flopped over.
“Medic!” Somepony shouted.
“Target has heavy ordnance!” Another called.
“Horse apples! Run!” Fell barked.
Buck that! They carried grenades!
Reaching upwards with my magic I gripped as much of the hallway’s ceiling as I could and ripped it down. The aged and decaying stonework gave way with a thunderous shower of rubble. A second mighty heave forced the rubble to form a plug in what remained of the hallway, blocking their path.
“We need to get out of here!” I said despite the complete and total obviousness of that fact.
“No! We should make a summer home here,” Fell called sarcastically as he raced down the hallway.
I turned and followed him, progressing through the crumbling gray stone tunnel of a hallway as quickly as the dim light would allow. The howl of the wind outside grew louder and louder as we ran, until we, at last, came upon a crumbled section of wall leading outside. A nearly solid wall of blowing ice crystals making up for the lack of stonework.
“Do you still have the energy for that spell to keep us warm?” Fell asked hesitantly.
“Yes, it should buy us twenty minutes before I’m dry,” I replied seriously.
“That’s it?” He asked in shock. “I thought you were supposed to be super powerful?”
“I am. And so is this storm. I’m giving you the best guess for how long my spell meant to keep you warm on a normal winter's day will last if I push it with brute force in this weather!” I exclaimed, the stress of the situation having gotten deeper under my skin than I thought.
“I never exactly learned a warmth spell meant for negative fifty and winds this strong!” I added. “I’ll have to change things on the fly, waste a lot of mana, and-”
“I understand, just do it. We need to get to the old moat. I’ll dig out a spot for us to stay in there,” Fell promised.
With a nod, I reached for my magic and focused as best I could casting Feltpen’s Thaumaturgic Coat. By the Emperor, I needed to learn more survival spells the next chance I got…
Assuming I got another chance.
The cold keep suddenly felt… Slightly less cold. The spell was not exactly coping well with the environment. But, “Okay, this should buy us a few minutes. It doesn't want to make us any warmer than this.”
“So long as we don't freeze in the next ten minutes it will be fine. There’s no way they can track us in this blizzard. Come on!” Fell called grabbing my hoof and running out into the blinding snow.
The winds almost immediately blew us over, the stiff gust felt like being body slammed by a massive pony. I slammed into Fell’s side, the only thing that kept me from blowing away.
Running wasn’t an option. The best we could manage was to shuffle slowly towards the keep’s exterior wall, which was rapidly vanishing beneath the thick piles of snow. It seemed ludicrous that snow could stick around with these kinds of winds, and yet, there it was. Forming up in mounds and clumps in bold defiance of the winds that could toss a full grown pony.
Time became impossible to track as we staggered forwards. Everything became white, windy, and cold. The only significant marker of our progress was when we found the edge of the moat, even then we only barely recognised even that, as sometime in the past, this side of the moat had collapsed. A mound of earth running down and filling most of the moat up to the point of there being a landbridge.
Unfortunately for our plans, the storm had plastered a sheet of ice over the section of the moat we were on. The ramped section was not exactly easy to dig in ether, and both of us were certain snow would slide down the slope the second it started to thaw. Not wanting to be buried alive, we decided to get as much distance between us and the keep as we could.
After boosting each other up to the ledge on the opposite side of the moat, we kept walking in what was hopefully was straight line. I could feel the cold sinking into my bones despite the spell’s feeble attempts to keep the cold at bay even with me pouring all the energy into it I could. If I was this cold, how cold was Fell?
“I can’t keep walking,” Fell shouted over the winds, appearing in a few sparks and shimmers as he turned off his cloak’s enchantments. “Help me set up the tent.”
I nodded and used my magic to remove his pack. The poles came out of the pack rather easily, allowing me to put the small tent frame together in but a few moments before Fell’s cry of “Buck me!” caught my attention.
“What?” I called.
“The bucking tent ties onto the frame! It will be bloody Tartarus getting it up in this wind!” He called back.
I spent a few seconds thinking about the problem, then remembering Fell’s earlier plan I came up with an idea. “What if you dig a hole down a meter or so and we stick the tent inside it as a roof?” I asked.
“That might help with the wind, but it will still be tricky,” Fell said thoughtfully.
Then with a shrug he started to rip into the ground with his hooves. He made far more progress than I expected, managing to dig a half meter deep pit in only a few minutes.
“You’re good at that,” I remarked reflexively.
“Changeling,” he grunted back. “Let's get the tent up, I’m starting to freeze.”
The tent frame went into the ground easily enough, but the moment we began to tie on the thick triple canvas skin, the frame gained a sail. Every single cord in each and every row became a battle. Pony and bug versus wind and tent.
The canvas flapped and pulled and jumped dragging us across the ground several times. Each time we dug the hole a bit deeper and tried again. Finally, with the tent floor secured to one of the bottom sections of frame, Fell lay belly down on the canvas to help hold it down. Leaving only me to secure our shelter.
By the time I had managed to finally get the canvas wrapped around the frame and secured enough where we didn’t have to worry about it being ripped off by the wind, I had nothing left. I was exhausted. Me. A pony who shouldn’t actually be able to be fatigued.
“How am I tired?” I groaned, flopping down onto the tent’s floor, feeling limp.
“I’m sorry…” Fell apologized. “I needed to keep warm. Felt myself dying. Fed on you a bit more than I meant to.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said, too tired to object.
“Pull the blanket over us?” Fell pleaded.
“Sure,” I said, spying the blanket from the corner of my eye and dragging it over the two of us, using the last of my energy to lay alongside the admittedly ice cold bug.
Poor guy. Hopefully, I’d help warm him a little. And at least the howling winds could only just push in one side of the tent like it was trying to punch us now. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was trying to punch us. It certainly felt like it had.
“Thanks,” Fell mumbled happily. “We'll move along as soon as the storm lets up.”
“Okay,” I agreed, doing my best to hold him in such a way as to contact the most parts of his body to provide the most warmth.
After a few minutes of silent pleading with physics, the tent began to warm up. Fell included.
The warmth coming back was a welcome relief. Was this what cuddling felt like to nonasexual people all the time? No wonder they liked it so much. I could get into the feeling of not freezing to death. It was really quite pleasant.
Not that I ever wanted to do it again.
I decided to think back on what I could remember about how Feltpen’s Thaumaturgic Coat had reacted to the extreme cold. Might as well use the time spent warming Fell up to prevent this problem in the first place. I definitely could improve on the spell with a little work and time.
It seemed like a better thing to focus on than why the bucking Air Guard was trying to kill us all the way out here...
Pokinutyy Tsitadel' ruins - Griffon Kingdoms
4th of Chillfrost, 16 EoH
The arctic blizzard which decided to come early this year bought Repose and Fell all the time they needed because there was no way Sous-Lieutenant Blitzwing was going to order is troops to try and fly in winds strong enough to topple a stone tower. Besides, they would need to dig free of the rubble the towers collapse had created in order to leave the small section of the keep they were currently trapped inside.
Sunlit had wandered away from the rest of the assassination squad. Not only because he’d venomously argued with Blitzwing over chasing them out into the storm and just blasting a hole through the unstable ruins to get out immediately, but also because he wanted nopony to bother him while he worked.
After all, why waste a perfectly good body?
Corporal Zephyr’s body lay on the stone floor next to a hole Sunlit had managed to dig through the floor, in which he was currently working. The necromancer's detection spells had shown him the ground below had once been a graveyard, likely for the keep’s chapel before the building was expanded at some point in the distant past.
Regardless, the rage and fury he felt at Repose’s escape needed an outlet. There were bones below and a corpse above. Everything needed to make a certain kind of creature Sunlit had always wanted to construct, but the Guild prohibited. Of course, the Necromancer's Guild wasn’t exactly watching him anymore.
Sunlit wiped some sweat off his brow, then pushed deeper into the ground with his borrowed entrenching tool. He wanted to conserve his magic for the actual construction and animation, so digging the hole by hoof was his only real option.
His shovel had bit into the ground when suddenly a mare’s voice addressed him.
“Thank you,” Light Step said sincerely. “I didn’t think you cared about anypony enough to bury them.”
“Oh, you misunderstand,” Sunlit replied without looking back. “I’m not putting bodies in, I’m taking them out. I need some spare parts. I have a weapon to build.”
Light’s face twisted in confusion for a few seconds before her teal eyes narrowed in angry realization.
“Like hay you are,” Light objected. “Zephyr is on record as having religious objections to being reanimated! It’s illegal to use his remains in any way. He opted out of the program!”
Sunlit rolled his eye, turning around to hold one hoof up as if weighing something. “One stallion’s personal wishes… Orders from the Steward… Hmmm... So hard to see which one is actually worth something!” He spat.
Light’s eye twitched. Sun’s irreverent, hateful, and selfish nature had been one thing. Him being a general jerk had been another. But completely disrespecting the last wishes of her best friend was simply too far.
Light bared her teeth, the predator's fangs in her mouth making Sunlit just a little nervous as the mare growled. “Okay, that’s it! Buck you, scumbag!”
Sunlit had half second to wonder what she meant before the mare leaped into the pit, grabbing Sunlit but his shoulders and delivering a headbutt that sent the stallion reeling backward, stars exploding in his eyes. Light reared up, throwing three savage crosses’, knocking a tooth free of Sunlit’s jaw before Blitz’s roar stopped her cold.
“What the buck is going on here, Soldier?” The officer demanded, running over to the hole and pulling Light off of Sunlit with one mighty heave.
“He’s going to perform necromancy on Zephyr!” Light accused, fangs still bared in rage.
Blitz’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Sunlit. “Is that true?”
Sun nodded, groaning, spitting a line of blood into the dirt. “Yeah. But I seem to recall our orders being to ‘do whatever is necessary’ to kill that abomination. You guys were sitting on your plots so I’m doing what I can to further the mission, sir,” Sunlit said, being admittedly more honest than he normally was.
“Corporal Zephyr was a follower of the Old Gods, Patches. He did his paperwork. His remains are not to be used,” Blitz said in an iron voice.
“Yeah yeah yeah, it’s a crime,” Sun countered. “But I’m pretty damn sure that the order of ‘Do whatever is necessary’ supersedes that crime. We can’t go out there right now, but I can make something which can, and every second we stay here he gets further away!”
Blitz let go of Light. The mare smiled happily, confident that her commanding officer would do the right thing.
“While you make a good point, It’s still-”
“A fact that they're getting away but can’t have gotten far! I can create and raise an undead creature which will be unhindered by the cold and can just kill them both right now using the corpse I have at hoof?” Sunlit countered.
Blitz sighed, face pulling in irritation. He knew that Sunlit was right, he could solve their current problem. But at the same time… “We need to honor the wishes of-”
“Look, sir, I need a whole corpse and some bones to do this. If we can’t use his body, can we execute the junkie? She bucking attacked me for no reason!” Sunlit snapped.
“No bucking reason!?” Light exclaimed angrily. “You-”
“Quiet!” Blitz snapped. “Patches, what in Tartarus do you mean by junkie?”
Light winced. “Um, sir I can explain-”
“I want him to explain, Soldier!” Blitz snapped, ears laying flat as the seriousness of the accusation against of of his better soldiers boiled behind his eyes.
Sunlit’s lone eye widened in honest surprise. “Wait, you don’t know? Her aura is jagged. You’d see it every time she cast a spell if she were a unicorn. It’s a sure sign of having used a ton of arcane based potions. You know, the addict level. And her necklace, the etchings on it indicate they are there to suppress a potion effect. Obviously, it's there to suppress withdrawal symptoms or some side effects. It’s so obvious, how did you not have any unicorn ever bring this up?”
“The Air Guard are all pegasi…” Blitz muttered in answer before turning to Light. “Light, is this true?”
“Y-yes, sort of,” she stammered awkwardly. “It was an accident, and I haven't used anything in-”
Blitz bit his lip, genuinely heartbroken that one of his trusted soldiers had held a secret from him.
“Light, punishment detail. For concealing information from your superior officer that might affect a mission. You will be cleaning every squad member's gear tonight, and every night we make camp, in addition to cooking all meals. When we get back to Prance, there will be a formal investigation to see if you are still fit to serve,” Blitz sighed sadly. “Patches, carry on.”
Light’s ears fell in despair. “B-but sir!”
“I don’t care about this anymore, Soldier! I thought I could trust you. I obviously can’t. Get to cleaning,” he ordered, starting to walk off.
Sunlit coughed into a hoof. “So um, I can just use this pile of meat then, right?”
“I said carry on didn’t I?” Blitz barked, storming off.
“You didn’t have to tell him! I used to live with a unicorn. I know how your arcane scene works. I know you can see that I’ve been clean for years!” Light sniffled, trying to hold back a complete emotional breakdown.
“No, but you hit me. So I’m going to destroy your life as completely as I can. Because now I hate you instead of just dislike you. You should get to cleaning before I have free time and decide to make things dirty again,” Sunlit said as he turned around and went back to his digging.
Light grit her teeth, tempted to attack the necromancer again, but realizing she was on the thinnest possible ice as it was, she turned around, slinking off into the hallway, wondering how the Prench armed forces came to this.
Right, so ignoring the Hate Sink that is Sunshit... Light Step, the Felin. Hooo boy! So, last night, Meep found an awesome picture of a hybrid pone with pegasus and what looks like the cat parts of a griffin. Lets see... Ah, here it is. And she almost instantly wanted to add it to her AU.
Right, so I proceeded to task myself with a species name while we worked out the logistics of canonizing it. The end result was Felinus Equus Sapiens. Course it needed a more common name which is Felinasus, and shortened, that becomes Felin. So yay, we done did some lore on the spot! Yer welcome.
Please say she survives this story, and changes teams perhaps?
Also I already take joy in thinking ill of patches but I think I'm going to start hating Blitz too.
7614135 I won't spoil the survival of any character in this story. As for Blitzwing, he's following protocol with Light. You can't dislike an officer for doing their job. Unless you mean for his call with a certain corpse near the end there... Then yeah you can defiantly call him an asshole for that.
I'm a horrible person I don't only want Sunlit to fail but be made absolutely miserable doing so. I'm sorry doing anything necessary doesn't justify breaking someones final wishes. That is a slippery slope
7614147 He's at the bottom of the slippery slope and has been for years. He's from a rather wealthy and respected family. He's always been like this. He had the respectable, though low paying job because his own family disowned him years ago after he disrespected his own mother's final wishes. Sunlit is an actually evil person, it's perfectly fine to want to see him destroyed.
7614140
I can stand by the investigation of her health due to drug addiction, but putting her on punishment detail for upholding the law -and- turning a blind eye to the necromancer breaking the law...
If this situation turns into a horror-survival scenario (you could easily write a horror movie with this chapter as it's start) I hope he understands it's his own fault when he dies.
7614165 Its not just Sunlit but the officer for letting him do so. How many laws will they break because of orders. Later will it be the laws don;t apply because they aren't in the country anymore
7614173
Sorry if the wording is odd, but the punishment detail is for concealing information from her superior officer which could impact her performance as a member of a fighting unit. He wouldn't have blinked at her if she just got into a fight, and had Sunlit not mentioned her condition to him, he wouldn't have punished her at all.
And your horror movie idea, closer to the money than you think.
As for Light it really was an accident. She's fucked for the rest of her life from it.
Getting some major Dark Souls vibes from this description, man...whoa, I'm tripping, dude...too many dung pies, man...anyway this looks like an awesome story. Gonna start the first chapter later so best add this to the Watch list.
Pokinutaya Tsitadel'. Because Zitadelle has a female gender in German and Russian.
BTW. Do you know there is the town called Berdsk in Russia? So your Birdsk is absolutely hilarious.
Welp looks like insanity took too long for me to reply to the last chapter(sorry about that!) So on to this one while I have some time! (Though will likely be written in two parts. Same post though just writing my ideas down at different times as I have class soon so will start chapter now and write down about it, then finish it when classes are done.)
Oooo such an awesome sounding cloak! I so want one! No idea when I would use it but heh. still....
Lol, I like his nicknsame *gigglesnort* silly pony, now like somepony else said looking like an uglier Sally.
Oooooo what an awesome sounding creature! *pets* So sad she is seen as an outcast, poor girl.
Sounds like some of that crazy weather you have told me about near you.
Oooo cool! Morse code 0n a watch, and must be somepony super powerful indeed!
Ahhh no wonder he is being so oblivious?
Ah Sunlit, you just keep giving me more and more reasons to hate you.
Awesome chapter as always! And I finished it all in one go instead of having to wait like I thought I would. Buuut now I really have to run! See ya!
Might the morse code be from Cadence\bandit queen
I like nonsexual cuddling, it's fuckin' great. Almost as good as hammers.
This just in: Patches McLittle Shit is still horrible. More at 11.
7614027
*looks around at all the possibilities*
...I am fine with this.
7614358
My money is on it being Dusk. She's due for an appearance. I mean, who else would be able to mess with a lich's soul in just the right way to make their phylactery into a makeshift receiver?
7614513 There are a couple wrinkles with your theory there. In order to have warned him of the artillery strike incoming, the informant would have had to have been in the cave the Air Guard squad was sheltering in, know to be scrying that particular animal den at that time, or be informed by someone who was there between when they made the decision and when they reached the keep. They were flying and it was about twenty kilometers, so that's barely five minutes to transmit the warning and the more layers it has to go through the later it will be. Besides which, her getting that close to someone that is one of her brother's creatures would likely tip him off and she probably wouldn't want to do that just yet.
7614734
I'll preface this by stating that I haven't read "All Hail the Queen" yet, so I don't know if we learned anything new from there.
That being said, she should still at least have instant transportation ability, which alone would be enough to do the job. We don't know what she's been up to lately, so it is possible she's been keeping tabs on her brother and decided to indirectly interfere. As for being close to her brother's creature (which is inaccurate, since he only working with her brother), that would either require Little Shit to spot and somehow recognize her, or for Dawn to have some reason to suspect her and thus give him some detection ability.
Alternatively, it could have been empty room. They seem to have a penchant for going unnoticed and transmitting information.
I'd of stabbed sunlit anyways
7614258 No, I did not know that. XD
7614358 That is one possibility. But there are some others too :)
7614513
We take you live to our field reporter Derpy CHokobo with the lastest in assholery!
It could be Dusk, but no spoilers just yet.
7614441 Damn. That's almost blasphemy coming from you!
7615037 Most would :)
7615199
Who doesn't like cuddling?
Other than autistic people, people with PTSD from rape, you know what a lot of people don't like cuddling.
7614334
"Hey! QCFE! We need to clean up this place!"
"... I think not!" *poof*
It's the army, you get a nickname if you're the new guy. If you're an asshole it's an insulting one. Tis how people work :P
Light *purrs* *blushes and runs off*
That would be your typical winter storm up here.
Yep, he literally just doesn't think about that sort of thing.
7615199 that is partially reassuring
I'm hoping Light will eventually get to join with Repose, or at the very least get her vengeance... Feel like she's really got the short end of the stick there.
7615501 I wont spoil anything, but I didn't stick her in for no reason. Probably not the reason you think though.
I'm sorry, it's a chapter about a winter storm, I couldn't pass it up.
Should be "Light", I think?
Probably should be "hole up" ("to hide"), though "hold up" ("to stop") theoretically works...
"Jog"... unless he's getting paid.
"Bear", hairy arms are sexy!
"Buck is"?
That is... a creepy mental image ("bared").
I find it a bit odd that Blitz would make the decision he did. Light just needs to run her mouth, disliked by the squad or not, and Blitz is going to have a mutiny on his hooves.
7616069 Thanks for the corrections :)
7616098 I hope my goofy humour-ized corrections are okay.
7616100 THey make me smile, so yes ^^
7616184 *poses in front of a 'Mission Accomplished' banner*
7615229
Yep totally sounds like me, I hate cleaning.
*nods* understandable. Crazy army people, but eh at least it helps put the jerks in their place?
Aw, sorry Light I no mean to embarrass you! :3 *giggles and runs after* But you are so soft
Daaaaang, that is some insane weather then.
tsk tsk tsk, what we gonna do with that silly Lich?
7616286
This isn't true for all of Alaska, but it is in Fairbanks (We are on the artic circle, you see...) and also for Palmer, AK because of the "fuck you" formation of mountains arround the town. But every winter there you are guaranteed to one day have a storm of these proportions:
https://gifsound.com/?gif=https://media.giphy.com/media/nGpbjS2IXd6rm/giphy.gif&v=ScV5tNmHbgw&s=1
It will dump about 2-3 feet in a few hours, and then it stays around -30 for a few weeks... If it's a bad winter, the storm will hit Condition 1 and you may get a radio/TV warning to stay indoors for reasons of "You will literally freeze to death without arctic specific winter gear." FOrtuantly, most of Alaska where people live isn't that bad. -10 is the usual winter low for Anchorage for example.
7616340
Brrrr that makes this little Queenie feel half frozen just thinking about it/ seeing it in that gif! Yeaaaaah -10? I'd be calling into work being all 'This buggy is not made for these conditions. She's staying home with her Harem. Where she can have the warms. ' And even worse -30! Colt, how do you all stand cold like that? Lots of coco and heater way up on high?
7616351 Thermal underwear is required. We also bought ultradense closed cell foam insulation and made shutters for the windows that block them off compleatly. Helps keep heat in and cold out.
7616378
So no looking out the window then? Or just along the edges and such? Yeah I would say Thermals would be major important!
7616419 If the window is not entirly blocked, ice will form on it and overtake exterior walls due to the temperature differentials between incide and outcide causing LOTS of condensation.
7616429
Ahhh that must suck, means no natural light only man-made. But then, better to be safe than see outside?
7616439 Personally, this is my view on windows. If I want to see outside, I have this magical device on my desk with which I can see any place I so desire on this world, the other planets within our sun's embrace, our moon, and even a few asteroids. The massive thermal hole in the wall which makes the over all wall structure weaker and offers a home intruder instant access to the interior regardless of my door lock is NOT a welcome feature on any home. (I'd personally like to live in one of the old Minutemen II silos that got sold off to civilians after being decommissioned. That way there are no windows, there is one door that a robber would need a tank to open, and there are self-contained power and water systems. I could stay down there for MONTHS and there would be no weather :D)
As for natural light, there is no physical difference between sunlight and full spectrum LED lighting as that is calibrated to match the sun's own emissions. The EM spectrum is mankind's bitch!
7616521
Hmm true, true. That does all make a lot of sense. Heh yeah one of those houses would be cool to own/live in! Still, I think I prefer some natural light to LED lighting, even if with how we have made it, it accounts to be the same thing. But yeah safety wise it is better to have not than to have,
Hippogriffs are half bird of prey half horse they have no feline half.
7620241 Right. But griffons are half lion, half eagle. If they can pass on half of their traits to a pony child, it makes sense that they could pass on their avian or their feline traits. Therefore, Griffon + non-pegasi pone= Hippogriff and Griffon + Pegasi = Felin.
7616521 You can't smell the lilacs through the glass.
7620918 I can order scented candles via Amazon to smell any local or scent desired :P
7621165 So long as that locale also smells like bee's wax and fire. I prefer my floral scents with a pinch of harmful radiation and a dash of strategic liability.
Smell the flowers. Live dangerously.
7621284 to be fair, i prefer the smell of burnt things to most other scents. DOnt know why, but I've always liked the smell of a fired model rocket motor.
I wonder what Sunlit's personal hell is going to be like?
I'm imagining it's going to be him watching a video of his life, but now he is being forced to acknowledge how his every mistake led to his ultimate death while commentators a la Mystery Science Theater 3000 comment on all the missed opportunities he had to be happy or what caused him to dig his ow grave a little deeper while also making jokes at all of his stupid moments, alongside glimpses into other realities where he actually lived a long happy life and was remarkably successful, even going so far as to ascend as Prance's second emperor-all while not being an absolute asshole and even harnessed some of the power of friendship to do so.
Basically, he learns everything-every last moment, every last action he took was, undeniably, the wrong one. He can't even delude himself-his hell won't let him.
Either that or he goes to Rainbow's eternal nightmare of singing flowers.
20 bits says Light Step joins Fell and Genital, I feel we need a 3rd party member here.
7621284
No.... Bees are cunts
7677291
7677209
Whenever a dope decides to name their newborn Abcde or Squiresebastiansenator I wanna get chucked out a window. Does that count?