Kingdom Pony

Snipe flaps his wings eagerly, knowing he isn't the best at flying although racing /is/ really fun. Seeing the rings and other sort of swerving tricks he can do, he smirks and does a little bit of actobatic feats while he flies.

Spoiler:

Heartbreaker was kicking himself. Alright, so "magic has a weird aftertaste" wasn't the clearest lead possible but it was SOMETHING. And he'd brushed it off as the ravings of a picky unicorn. "Your Highness, I believe..." he began just as the Princess lapsed into sleep.

He blinked a few times and glanced over at the pegasus who was shaking her head. "Do...do we wake her up?" The Princess was clearly tired but she had chosen the least convenient time possible to doze off and the etiquette for this situation was less-than-specific.

"Well...It seemed important...She would understand...Right?" Arcane approached, nudging Celestia's sleeping form with one hoof, trying to wake her up. "Celestia...? Your highness...?" She was a little uneasy about trying to wake her up, but...It was vital to their world if magic was awry, and she seemed to know something...

Fang managed to pull off an early lead through the first two hoops, but Snipe managed to catch up on the third hoop after a u-turn to a higher elevation. Snipe managed to bank through the fourth ring, gaining a small lead, but the dive through the final ring resulted in Fang pulling quickly ahead. "Oh yeah! I rock!" the gryphon declaims, doing an impromptu arial victory dance.

Vision meanwhile has found the source of the disturbance. An oddly snapped glowing section of wall in the back of the cavern. It looked almost like...a keyhole maybe?

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As Arcane Seeker slightly nudges her, Celestia instantly snaps awake. "Um, where was I? Oh yeah. Dire news. Apparently, stars have been disappearing from the night sky. Like lanterns going out, or candles being snuffed. As you can imagine this is a really bad thing that is not good." she explained, pausing as if realizing what she said in order to...seemingly decide to just drink the entire coffee pot in one go. "Whooo, there we go! Anyway, so yeah, stars have been going out. In response, Luna left to investigate, in secret of course. That was three weeks ago, and I have heard nothing since. This concerns me. Naturally, the Night Guard are out in force trying to find her, but it won't do any good I fear. I believe Luna has left this world to try and find the cause of the stars disappearance. As you two may or may not know, travel between worlds is nearly impossible, except for a few powerful individuals such as Luna and myself." She yawns a bit. "I forgot how exhausting doing the sun AND the moon was. Which brings me to why I can't go. Gotta keep the sun and moon on time after all. So, anyway, my plan is to send you two, expert inteligence agent and mystical investigator, to find Luna in whatever world she's in." Celestia explains, smiling.

Snipe hovers in the air, watching Fang's victory dance until he feels well proud, and then clears his throat. "Fang, we need to get supplies." Snipe said, gesturing around at the trees and such. "Especially if we want to go on the stupid raft promptly."

Heartbreaker fought to not dance. The Princesses' dear sister was gone, apparently in another world entirely, and Celestia had chosen him to go and find her! This was his chance to impress her more than anypony in history had! "I am beyond honored that you would entrust me with this task, Your Highness. I shall not rest until your sister is returned home". He paused before adding, What do I need to know about this other world?"

Arcane's eyes widened for a moment at that news...Stars were fading from the sky, and Luna was missing on top of that!? That was...terrible news, and a horrible omen on top of that...But listening further, Celestia had chosen them to find her...!? She paused, thinking of what could make stars fade, but for the moment, nothing was coming to mind..."Of course, Your Highness. You can rest assured, we -will- find your sister, no matter what comes our way!" She nodded forcefully, resolving to find Luna, and save her if need be!

Vision, finger her way barred by the plot door figured she might as well go and tell the others, since even if the cave dissipated when she looked away, it's not like she could do anything more here.

"Lighten up small fry. You guys may need fruit, but I plan to just fish the whole trip. Keeps the storage problem down you know?" Fang said slightly emberrassed. There were times he was awfully self conscious about being the only predator on the island.

As Vision made her way out of the cave, she felt a presence behind her. Turning around instinctively, she "saw" and indistinguishable figure swathed in all concealing brown robes. "This worlds time is over. Darkness falls, and there shall be no dawn." The figure, having made its cryptic proclamation, vanished in an instant.

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Celestia looked....emberrassed? *ahem* "Yes about that. See, I don't know what world she's on. And if I were to use my power to send you to another world, it would be a one way trip unless Luna or something equally powerful was there. As such it would be a one shot attempt. Luckily, there is a solution. Our top mad scientist, Pinkamenia Dian Pie, has created a ship that can break the energy wall that separates the worlds, though only between certain weak points or 'paths of least resistance'. She calls it the...*sight*Greatly Useful Magc Machine Interstellar, or G.U.M.M.I." She clearly needs a moment to process what she just said. "I don't have time to teach you how to fly it. Luckily, I don't need too. Luna was very interested in the project, and one of her few friends is trained as the ships pilot. She's every bit as eager to find Luna as I am. I won't lie, this mission will be dangerous, and I don't know how long it will take. If you want to back out now, I understand. If not, head down to hanger four, and good luck."

Snipe sighs and gives Fang a quick hug in mid air. "Don't worry. I'm sorry about that, but others need fruit. Come on. Let's see who can get more." Snipe zips around and grabs a couple fruits.

There was no bucking way Heartbreaker was going to turn down a mission of such importance, especially when it came from the Princess herself. "It would be my greatest honor to find your sister and return her here, Your Highness. You may rest easy knowing I..." he remembers the pegasus who is also there "...we are on the case!" He drops into a formal bow and, after one last (practically-swooning) look at Celestia, trots out the door...

...whereupon he immediately starts pacing around the foyer, ruminating on the Princess' words. Not only were there other worlds but Princess Luna was either trapped on one of them or had gone rogue and a mad scientist was going to sail some type of ship through an energy wall to get there. The technology was, frankly, above his paygrade but he wasn't going to let that stop him. Nothing would stop him from proving his devotion to Celestia. Making sure the ivory spellblade (a gift from the Princess, inscribed with her cutie mark) was still tucked into his jacket, he began to walk away slowly so the pegasus (Arcane Seeker she had called her) could catch up.

"That's.... not good." Vision said to herself and rushed back to the others to tell them what had transpired.

"I see...We will not let you down, Your Highness!" Arcane bowed respectfully yet again, hurrying out of the room to try and catch up to the earth pony, eager to get started on their mission...She paused, looking at him as she checked...She had plenty of supplies...Tomes, runes...Potions...Yes, that would do. Hopefully. "Well, this is an...interesting turn of events. Luna's missing...This isn't good...Do you have any idea what might be going on...?"

Heartbreaker turned to Arcane Seeker and looked her over. If they were going to be working together, it was in his best interests to be up-front. "Nothing good. If even Princess Celestia can't find her then either something equally powerful is hiding her location. . . or she doesn't want to be found. Either way, it doesn't bode well for us mere mortals". He lowers his voice before continuing, "I don't like this. Not the whole 'other worlds' stuff, I've seen much stranger things. We're going into this blind. No contacts on the ground, no forward recon, no intelligence of any kind". He pauses for a moment before grinning, "I forgot how much fun making it up as I go is". He inclines his head in a bow, "Name's Heartbreaker. Royal Spymaster to Her Highness Princess Celestia of Canterlot. Charmed, I'm sure".

"There is the possibility that she's simply too far away for any kind of detection spells to reach. I like to at least consider a semi-optimistic approach...But you're probably right...It's not a good omen. Going in with no information...It's been a while...Ah, yes...Introductions...My name is Arcane Seeker, investigator of ancient magics and overall mystic specialist. It's good to meet you," She said, grinning happily...She hoped he wouldn't ask why a pegasus specialized in magic, and opted to go on to try and keep their attention on the task at hand as she began heading to the docking bay. "GUMMI, hmm...? I wonder how it works...To be able to get through the magic seperating worlds...It must be incredibly powerful...I'd love to study it..."

"That. . . might not be a bad idea. Neither of us can sail this ship so, if this guide the Princess assigned us becomes incapacitated, we're trapped". A pegasus mage, hmm? "You said you were an arcane specialist. . . could you figure out how this thing works, given enough time?" He drops another of his trademark grins, "Never hurts to have a backup plan".

She chuckled, nodding confidently as she thought for a moment, already trying to think of how it might work, though it was just theorycrafting until she could see it..."I'm certain I could, with some time to analyze it, figure out how to work it, at least well enough to get us to where we're going...While I hope it won't come to that, you're right...It's best to have a plan." She could agree with that...hope for the best, plan for the worst, right?

"Not sure glory is the word we're looking for here, but let's get this mission underway!" Arcane nodded, heading into the hanger confidently, looking around as she entered.

"Yeah okay...bet you I can carry more at once!" Fang challenged, racing off before even seeing if Snipe accepted.

Vision meanwhile found Tide, already working to lash together several of the larger logs to make the base of the raft.

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Heading down the hall, the hanger holds a bizarre ship. It looks like a giant pink collection of blocks that are somehow sticking together. It looks like somepony just stuck a large number of building blocks together along with a block that was an engine, anyone that was a cockpit.

Snipe rolled his eyes and flew around the island, collecting fruit and other things.

Spoiler:

Heartbreaker sighed when he saw the enormous collection of pink blocks. He was no arcane engineer but he was fairly certain it didn't look structurally sound. There is literally nopony else he would get in that thing for. "The things I do for love. . . " he starts, before remembering Arcane is there as well and abruptly cutting himself off. "Come on, let's find that mad scientist before I sneeze on that thing and it falls apart". This was going to be an interesting trip. . .

Vision, as previously stated, goes and finds the other members of the island and tells them about the recent mysterious and strange events.

"What...Is that...? How is it-...Uhm...That doesn't make any-...Hmm...Maybe if they-...Hrm..." Arcane seemed torn between utter disbelief and curiosity about how it worked, muttering to herself for a time before finally looking over at Heartbreaker and sniggering. Someone had a crush on the Princess...But she chose not to tease him about it. "Yeah, we should...It was...Would it be Doctor Pie? I'm never quite sure how to address 'mad' scientists..." She walked around, looking for this Pie individual...Or possibly the pilot.

Spoiler:

"What, seriously? There isn't a cave anywhere near there. Are you sure you didn't fall asleep or something?" Tide asks, bemused at her fantasy.

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Arcane Seeker's search for her targets proved fruitless, but she thought she saw a glimmer of something up above...

An anvil easily twice the size of the ship comes crashing down, landing with a resounding THONG!

After a couple seconds, cracking and rumbling could be heard and right before the stuned ponies eyes...the anvil crumbled.

"Structural integrity is a big checkaroonie I'd say!" says a voice so perky you can almost taste the happy. "Oh hey neat! Visitors! Or wait, are you intruders?" In response to this question, a giant cannon arm comes out of the ceiling and points at the two guards. "Well, which is it? Visitors or intruders? I don't want to use this by mistake."