Kingdom Pony

It's another fine day on Butterfly Island. Warm sun, cool breeze, the occasional drifting cloud. Sunlight creeps into the massive tree fort that serves as home to the islands residents: Snipe the Pegasus, Tide the Earth Pony, Heart the Unicorn, Fang the Griffon, and Vision Mared the...nopony was totally sure. All of them were just children though. There were no adults on Butterfly Island, the only spot of land that could be seen, even from the air. It was a peaceful morning. Iw was the last morning.

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Canterlot, he most noble and shining of all worlds. A Kingdom of magic ruled over by the benevolent sisters Celestia and Luna. A world where magic and science had advanced far enough to bring about wonders no other world had. It was the shining jewel of the night sky. It was four in the morning when Celestia summoned two of her top personal agents to her offices.

For reason later to be explained, assuming anyone cares about their silly filly games, our scene opens with Vision tackling Snipe and yelling "Bingo!"

Snipe aims his slingshot high into the tree and pulls back slowly. He keeps it there for a moment, adjusting for the wind, before firing it, knocking one of the fruits down and trotting over, weapon in wing. "Am I the only one of us who's really trying to prepare enough food for... Days or longer?" He fires another. "Honestly, we need food, water, and some sort of shelter from the rain." Snipe calls back to whichever pony is watching him.

Spoiler:

Snipe then yelps loudly as a pony barrels into him, smashing the two fruits (If he's collected them) and he yells at her, "DANGIT VISION I'M TRYING TO GET THINGS DONE!"

It was...absurdly early, but Celestia was usually busy later in the day...Arcane Seeker hurried to Celestia's offices, kneeling respectfully as she entered, closing her eyes as she showed respect to her ruler for a moment. "You wished to see me, Princess...?" she asked simply, verifying what she knew.

"Hey, it's not my fault you decided to skip your turn! You brought this on yourself." Vision responded to Snipe while tossing one of the broken fruit into the air.

"..." Snipe glares and fiddles in his bag for some berry and aims it at Vision. "You're going to regret that!"

Spoiler:

"If everypony's going to go through that stupid little raft, I've got to get us ready to go along it."

"Gah!" Vision exclaims, attempting to dodge the berry (and apparently failing).

Spoiler:

"We're still doing the raft thing? I still don't get where you all think we're gonna go on a raft. Now if we could fix up the B-wing...."

Heartbreaker trotted through the regal halls of the Royal Palace with apparent ease but his steps betrayed a definite purpose. He was late. For a summons from Princess Celestia herself. If there was one thing he couldn't handle with his usual casual disdain it was the thought of disappointing the Princess. He broke into a gallop, skidding to a halt in front of the doors to Celestia's private office.

"A thousand pardons for my tardiness, Your Highness". He sinks into his most formal bow before standing back up and noticing he and the Princess were not alone. A pegasus he didn't recognize occupied the office as well.

While the B-Wing was undoubtedly a superior craft to a raft, there was the small problem of a lack of tools, energy, parts, and about a third of the ship hindering it from ever being of use. Sadly, those two fruits are a bust. Tide is busy gathering up wood to fashion into the raft, building a nice sized pile. "Sheesh, you guys at it again? Come on, I know you're excited, but it's still going to be a while before we get the raft done."

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Princess Celesita Equis, Lady of the Dawn, Ruler of the Sun, smiled at her two subjects. She had on flannel pajamas, a night cap, and had a teddy bear next to her. She yawned a little. "Don't worry about it. I'm not the best early in the morning either. Now then, if you'll wait just a moment." The mighty Alicorn then proceeded to fix herself a cup of black coffee and drink it quick. "AHHHH. Right then. Arcane Seeker, Heartbreaker, you two are my most trusted investigative agents. Arcane is an expert in uncovering magical secrets, while Heartbreaker specializes in the more mundane but no less important matters." The Solar Diarch paused to drink another cup of coffee. "I have called you here for a reason. Tell me, have you noticed anything odd these last few nights?"

Snipe grumbles and flaps his wings. "I'm Going to see if I can speed things up here then." he sighs and flies around the island, collecting branches and going through the motions of making the raft.

Spoiler:

Anything unusual...? Celestia was clearly going somewhere with this...Arcane was quiet for a moment, considering what she knew, scouring her memory for anything that would be abnormal to them...Though, she would be forced to admit she'd been doing a bit more research than actual legwork recently...Hopefully this Heartbreaker knew something more than she did on that front. "Let's see..."

Spoiler:

Heartbreaker considers that carefully, as he does with every word that comes out of his beloved Princess' mouth. Nothing came to mind. Well, there were the pegasus twins from Baltimare but he was fairly certain that wasn't the kind of weird she was talking about. Fancypants used a different caterer for his latest soiree as well but he had already pursued that lead and found nothing suspicious.

"No, Your Highness. All seems quiet on my front. No threats to report".

"Well, no harm in humoring them I suppose." Vision shrugged and went to help move logs around and other tasks.

While flying, Snipe notices Heart using her telekinetic abilities to pick fruit off of some trees. Apparently she also felt that getting food ready was a good idea. Vision has no real trouble getting pieces of wood from the forest near there, when he starts to feel something...off nearby.

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Arcane wracks her brain, and notes that there has been some sort of shift in the fabric of magic throughout the world, but it has been subtle and slow. It's almost like it was fading, but growing stronger at the same time.

Vision decides to trust her senses and search around for whatever she sensed.

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Note: Her. Female. Thank you very much.

Perception: 16 + 19 = 35

Snipe's ears twitch as he looks around. The sounds, smells, and sights all working together to help him find something, wether it's more supplies or food, or just something fun to do to delay the raft a bit.

Spoiler:

Fruit was, as always, fairly abundant on the island. One thing that did stick out though was Fang. The gryphon was practicing his flying maneuvers once again with the rings he had set up in the trees. As the only other flyer on the island, Fang had a bit of a rivalry with Snipe about their skills.

Vision meanwhile followed the odd sensation until she came across...a cave? There hadn't been a cave near the center of the island before.

Vision went exploring the mysterious cave. She thought about getting the others but, what if it mysteriously dissipated the way it had mysteriously appeared?

Snipe rolled his eyes a little and dashed over to Fang. "Hey. Wanna race?"

Whiteeyes wrote:Arcane wracks her brain, and notes that there has been some sort of shift in the fabric of magic throughout the world, but it has been subtle and slow. It's almost like it was fading, but growing stronger at the same time.

"Actually...Yes, your highness, there -is- something...It's been happening so slowly I almost missed it, but magic around the world seems to be...changing. It's getting weaker in some ways, but stronger in others...It's been hard to notice, harder to track...I'm afraid I can't give any more details than that..." She felt a little bad, though...This was supposed to be her area of expertise, and all she could do was report that yes, there -was- something strange...

A shift in the flow of magic, hmm? That certainly wasn't his area of expertise but Heartbreaker wasn't about to be upstaged in front of the Princess. He mentally filed through everything he'd heard from the magically-sensitive ponies of Canterlot recently to see if anything stood out...

Spoiler:

"Hah! You're on tiny!" Fang taunts, heading to your usual starting point. (Give me 5 Athletics Rolls)

Vision meanwhile finds the cave to be oppressive, like something big is pressing down all around her. It feels like the source of all this is even further in...

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Heartbreaker doesn't travel too much in the arcane circles, but he has heard some rumors that something felt "off" with magic lately, though nothing more concrete than that. Heck, the most one was able to elaborate was that magic "had a weird aftertaste", though he was a magical chef. Still, there hadn't been any reports of any difficulty casting, and as nothing had seemed to need his special touch, he'd ignored it. Maybe that wasn't the best idea.

Celestia drank her third cup of coffee. "That's very observant of you. Even some of the more talented unicorn mages haven't noticed anything beyond an odd feeling. My little ponies, I'm afraid that I have to give you some terrible news...which...could...affect....everything...." She trails off, blinks, yawns, and flops down, snoozing. Apparently three cups of coffee wasn't quite enough for a pre sunrise meeting for the Solar Diarch.

Vision, now even more intrigued by this unusual circumstance, heads in deeper.

"Change everything...Your highness...What do you mean by th-...She fell asleep again..." She sighed, glancing over at Heartbreaker for a moment and shaking her head in exasperation...But she supposed she -was- the solar diarch, she couldn't be blamed...Even if it was at quite possibly the worst time to nod off...