Discordian Promise

"Oh, bother." Sunlit Wave mutters quietly, before unfurling his wings and flying to the higher reaches of the cavern. "Hi!" He calls down, sounding jolly. "Um...do you have a bathroom I can use?"

OOC:

Midas nodded and got up to walk with the creatures, his gait just a bit awkward and gimpy due to his now uneven hooves.

The question seems to hold some of of them up, but most snap back to angry and threatening soon. Six of them take off and fly towards Sunlit. "Youwanttotakethe shiny! One of them accuses Sunlit.

"I do not!" Sunlit retorts reflexively, gaining altitude as they charge him. He pauses for a moment, remembering that yes, that is actually exactly why he's here, then swerves to avoid a charging creature "What Shiny, anyways?" He asks, folding his wings to dive under the other flying creatures.

OOC:

The creature look at Sunlit as if he was either stupid or crazy. They make no effort to stop Sunlit's flight. " Shiny.Shiny-of-Tunnels.Hippocorvids'-Shiny." One says deliberately.

ooc:

mjh6 wrote:The creature looks up at Skitterbuzz and her bees confusedly. It has clearly never seen anything like them before. It shrugged. "Idon'tknow.Cometocavernandsee."

Skitterbuzz looked around. Everyone else had gone on ahead while they where talking. "Well, could you take me there, please?"

Still looking a bit confuused, the creature started limping down the tunnel after the group. "Doyouhaveshiniesfromshinymaker?"

The main creature asked Midas, "What-questions-do-you-have-shinymaker?"

Compass followed the group, trying to take the cavern in. She was good with directions (Special Talent Scouts, yay!), but still...she didn't want to miss anything...

And she wanted to keep an eye on the magponies, too. She recognised the happiness they had, but...

Spoiler:

Internally breathing a sigh of relief, Sunlit Wave levels off, floating a little ways off the ground and taking a quick glance around the room. "Well if it belongs to the hippocorvids, I'm certainly not going to take it from them. But the only noteworthy thing I see in this cavern is that stone alter, which doesn't look very shiny to me. What is the Hippocorvids' shiny?"

Midas considered. "Um...where are my friends, where's the shiny you stole from me, cause I'm gonna need that back, why do you need shinies and what kind do you want? Also, a map would probably be good. I can't read them, but some pony else might. Uh...anything else?" he glanced back at whomever had stayed with him.

Skitterbuzz scowled slightly. "...I can't give it to you. But I do have an awful lot of 'ouch', see?" she said, gesturing at the bees. "And if I don't find somewhere to put it down for a bit, I may have to use some of it..."

Subtlety!:

Elacular wrote:Midas considered. "Um...where are my friends, where's the shiny you stole from me, cause I'm gonna need that back, why do you need shinies and what kind do you want? Also, a map would probably be good. I can't read them, but some pony else might. Uh...anything else?" he glanced back at whomever had stayed with him.

...huh. Actually...

It was a bad idea. These things had tried to kidnap them; they were acting kind of... over eager. And Compass didn't really need it, her life wouldn't be any worse without it, right, right?

Right?

"Can we see your shinies?" the Wonderluster blurted out.

She couldn't help it. Despite her suspicions...well, these were things she hadn't seen before, and she was curious. She was always curious about new things, and the fact that they had stopped trying to add Midas or her to the shiny pile helped.

Sunlit and Marked could see the hippocorvids look disgruntled. "Altarisn'tshiny" one of them agreed. Several looked down at the ones on the ground, who hestitated before revealing Midas's element. "Thisishiny"she affirmed.

The creature Skitter was talking to flinched and looked away. "Doesn'tmatter.Wehaveshinymaker"he muttered.

"Shinies-are-shiny;we-want-ones-like-that."The guide told Midas as if that explained everything. "Shiny-probably-in-cavern-so-everyone-sees.Friends-right-here."he said, gesturing towards Skitter and Steel. Others-left. Maps-"

One of the ones on the side piped up. "Whataremaps?Aretheyshiny?"

The guide looked back towards him, but before he could say anything, he heard Compass's question and looked sad. "Dirt-isn't-shiny.Glowworms-aren't-shiny.First-shiny-is-hidden,and-noone-can-see-it.Even-talking-shinies."

mjh6 wrote:One of the ones on the side piped up. "Whataremaps?Aretheyshiny?"

Skitterbuzz scratched her ear in confusion. "Yeah. What are maps, anyways? And why do we want one?"

Dirt and glow worms? 'First shiny'? She didn't understand -and was about to say so- when she heard Skitter.

"It's... a map," she said, dumbly. How did you explain something like that?

"Like... a drawing, showing you where things are and how to get there. Aren't there any maps in Honesty?"

The pegasus shrugged. "I guess not, considering I still don't really know what it is... Maybe yo could show me one when you get it?"

Compass frowned.

"Okay," she said slowly. "But...in the meantime, stay close to me. And you too, Midas. We don't want to get lost."

She made a quick mental check; there wasn't really anyway of telling which direction they were, so she'd nominated the statue of the Student as a nominal North... and she knew where she was in relation to that. Okay, so maybe it was straight away from it...but straight wasn't always 'straight', and Compass was sure she knew how far off true north they were. Compass rose cutie mark.

It was funny she was volunteering to show them the map, actually. She'd never really used one since her foal hood; striking out and discovering Wonders at random had always seemed more fulfilling.

((Deepest apologies for disappearing. I've been mentally exhausted due to work.))

"So a map is like a blueprint, just less helpful?" Steel asks, trying to get his mind around what a map was. "And how long has the first shiny been hidden?" He directs his last question to the magasus leader.

Midas happily stayed close to Compass. "A map is one of those drawings in the front of fantasy books that shows where everything is in that world, so it helps you understand. I think some of the reference books had those too, but they were just kinda pointless."

The creature thought for a moment."First-Shiny-came-maybe-200-cycles-ago-from-Chaotic-One. Fiftycycles-later-Leader-hid-it-to keep-safe."He frowned. "Didn't-like-that-but-then-Chaotic-one-came-two-cycles-ago-saying-shinymaker-will-come-with-shiny-of-tunnels,-and-we-will-have-more-than-enough-shinies-and-can-get-the-first-shiny-back."

Skitterbuzz shrugged at Midas' explanation of a map, still not getting it. She stopped to listen as the magpony thing spoke up again.

"So let me get this straight," She said in response. "They want Midas' 'shiny' so they can get another, older 'shiny' and if we don't give them up they'll take our other 'shinies'... All for the sake of yet another 'shiny' that we need to not die," she tried to sum up the situation, making airquotes with her hoof at the word "shiny". "IT'S SO SIMPLE! WHY DOES IT NOT MAKE SENSE!?" she shouted at the ceiling, certain that the GM Discord would be listening.

((New personal rule: All requests to the GM will be made strictly In-Character and, ideally, in ALL-CAPS. Just for fun.))

The creatures jumped. "Don'tknowaskLeaderaboutthem."

Too many shinys... Helping Skitters summarisation made Compass cross her eyes. Simple? It sounded mighty complicated to her...

"In that case.... can you lead us to your leader? I'm sure they'd be really anxious to meet the shiny maker."

But...
She couldn't shake the feeling she was missing something obvious...

Midas jumped at Skitter's sudden yelling and began quietly chanting under his breath. "I'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorry..."

Compass frowned. Midas was doing... that again! and this time, Sunlit wasn't here to talk him out of it. The pink pony glanced at Skitter, then towards the magasus, tempted to send one of them running for the orange pegasus... but that wouldn't do Midas any good in the meantime, would it.

How did she end up with two children. She didn't know the first thing about foals...

"Um...it's okay, Midas?" Well, that didn't sound forced at all, now did it? She tried placing a hoof on his shoulder.
"You... uh... you don't have to be scared. I won't let anything happen to you, or Skitter. Wonders Honour!... please don't be sad..."

Spoiler: