Luna's Command: The Wibbly-Wobbly Saga

"Enjoy some meat too.." Lunar comments. "Hey, I died and came back, what else is there to being a zombie?"

Xel Unknown wrote:"Enjoy some meat too.." Lunar comments. "Hey, I died and came back, what else is there to being a zombie?"

Plug laughs heartily at this. Grizzle merely shakes his head a little.

Spoiler:

Brilliant wrinkles her nose a bit at Lunar's carnivorous habit but doesn't say anything. "It's clearly a testament to your endurance that both of you recovered so quickly". She turns towards Grizzle and hastily adds "And your skill with lightning, of course. I should have warned you that the rock's nullification abilities may be dangerous but, well, the thought didn't occur to me. I was too concerned with the exciting theoretical implications of its existence... "

She watches Scorch's impressive cooking skills for a bit. "Smells good. I would say as long as you eat that instead of brains, Mr. Lunar, that you are not a zombie..."

"Right then," Scorch exclaims triumphantly, "Order up!" Within his claws, the dragon held quite a number of sticks and branches, all of which have had blades of grass and flower parts pierced through them, lightly but quickly roasted by Scorch's fire breath. He hands a shish salad to each member of the party as he describes the meal. However, as he reached the last three members, the two guards and himself, it becomes apparentl to Scorch that, in his haste, the last batch of three are less lightly roasted and more burnt to a crisp. The dragon tries his best to hold back a furious growl, but it is still pretty audible. "I'm sorry guys, I'm not use to cooking for groups this large," Scorch apologises politely through gritted teeth...

"Eh. I've had worse back in Horseshoe Camp," Plug says, taking the stick almost gratefully. Almost.

Grizzle says nothing as he takes his portion; he merely brings the shish up to his mouth and bites down on two flowers at once.

"Allow me!" Brilliant's focuses a relatively minor amount of power into her horn, which glows softly. The burnt food sparks momentarily. "There. It should be relatively more palatable now. Presuming you enjoy frosted donuts, of course".

She munches on her own fare for a moment. "So. We need a plan. Mr. Eye, I believe you mentioned something about sneaking to that rock?"

Wandering Eye munched contentedly on the dinner. "As usual, Scorch, your field cooking skills are more than adequate." He turned to Shimmer, speaking in-between eating the meal. "Ah, yes. At this point I don't know that any foes are left at the site, except perhaps a few sentries, but those we should be able to manage easily. I believe we can use that stone to adversely affect the collared timberwolves and ponies - perhaps that stone can somehow weaken the power of the collars.

"Of course, I do have an alternate plan, one that can but need not necessarily utilize the stone. In battle, I have the ability to summon these... well, "living shadows" I'd almost call them, from alternate planes of existence. They don't really do a whole lot, per se, but I can command them to an extent and their presence is extremely disconcerting to their enemies. And when a foe eventually is driven to attack them, seemingly banishing the spectre, the foe is mentally dominated by the spectre for a brief period. I believe in that short time, I could command the creature to merely remain still. Meanwhile, you can use that force-field spell you used on Lunar previously to restrain the mind-controlled creature, at which point we can go about removing its collar."

He could hear Iggy's comments now, about him being a madpony or something. Well, it certainly sounded strange to the innocent and ignorant. They'd find out sooner or later - and it was best he prepared them ahead of time for what the powers of the Beyond could accomplish...

Plug looks over to Wander, more than a little surprised. He blinks once, then says: "Huh. Guess that explains why Luna wanted you along!"

Grizzle doesn't seem to react to the statement in and of itself, but he does seem to be chewing a bit more contemplatively, like a criminal consuming their last meal. Without, of course, the heart-wrenching sadness.

Scorch shallows some of his reflavoured food before responding. "Do we ever have a way of finding where these collared ponies are?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no. I wasn't able to detect the collars last time I tried although that might have been because there weren't any in range... " She takes a few bites before continuing, "I might be able to drop the spell on one if we can catch it unaware. That's what I did with Mr. Lunar, after all. Fighting them may be entirely unnecessary".

Brilliant didn't like the sound of "mind-controlling shadows" one bit although she didn't react openly to it. Best to keep an eye on Mr. Eye for a while...

Cobbled munched down on his piece, reveling in the simple taste that it held.
Wow My dad makes too much cake.
Mind controlled shadofth? Shoundsh pretty
Cobbled gulped down his bite
Sorry. Sounds pretty interesting. Where did you learn to do that?
If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine.

Spoiler:

"Fighting is unecessary."
Iggy was looking more impatient.
"And what's a shadow?"

"Something perceivable only by sight," says the cloaked pony who had suddenly appeared amongst the group. "Useless to attempt to explain it to you."

Wandering Eye was in the middle of coming up with a witty remark to Iggy (He couldn't be that stupid... Surely somepony had mentioned the word in his presence before...?) when a cloaked newcomer suddenly arrived. Wander froze, his eyes the only thing moving, to gaze at the new arrival. He cursed himself for not noticing its approach sooner... or were his senses not to blame after all?

Spoiler:

It's a he, or at least that's what the voice would suggest. The cloak covers the figure completely and his head is down - you cannot see any physical features, thusly. From the look of things, he's an earth pony - his figure is too scrawny for the cloak to hide any wings effectively, and there is no horn protruding from the cloak's face. The stranger has an odd accent to him you can't quite place - almost a hum reverberating about the words, you'd say.

"Woah!" Plug shouts, jumping a little away from the stranger.

"Freeze," Grizzle says, a bit more calm and composed as he draws a sword from a scabbard under his wing - why had nopony noticed that before? "No sudden moves. I've not yet killed anypony in the line of duty, and I doubt either of us want me to start tonight."

The stranger, despite this threat, sits with a relaxed slouch.

"Easy, Grizzle," Wander glanced over at the guardpony for a moment. "If he was hostile, I get the feeling we wouldn't be standing here." He stared at the cloaked pony... wow, he had heard in stories of ponies with cloaks that concealed them so well you couldn't see their face, but he'd never actually seen one before. Not this well-concealed, anyway. "Who are you?" His tone was calm, curious, and nonhostile - typical Wandering Eye.

"The more important questions are what are you doing here and has nobody told you never to sneak up on a dragon?" Scorch adds after he finishes choking on his food from the surprise of somepony appearing out of nowhere...

Spoiler:

Grizzle looks at Wandering Eye for a few moments, then moves his sword away from the stranger without a trace of hesitance, but slowly all the same. Notably, he does not sheathe it. Plug, a bit late to the draw, unsheathes the dagger he had attached to his left foreleg.

The pony in question, for their part, simply turns their head, yet keeps it down the slightest bit. If it weren't for the fact that all they were looking at was obviously the ground, it could be said they were watching the sword. But the cloak is blocking their peripheral vision, so that was obviously not the case.

"...ah. I understand. You were attempting to threaten me."

The pony's head returns to its original position. "But I am distracted," it rasps, notably ignoring all questions thus far given to it. "And from what little of it I understand, I believe time grows short. I am here to deliver unto you a message."

It was at times like this Brilliant wished warmages had at least a dagger or something to wave around. Oh well. She manages to at least make her horn glow in a hopefully-threatening manner. "If you truly just here to deliver a message then there is no need for subterfuge. Reveal yourself!"

Spoiler:

Spoiler:

The figure pauses, then looks up.

It eyes are gold.

Its face is a mass of tentacles and pustules painstakingly shaped, like a clay sculpture, into the face of a pony.

Its teeth, when it smiles, as it does at Brilliant Shimmer's request, are pointed.

"I don't believe you would actually wish me to do that," it says.

The dragon just sits there, somewhat creeped out. "This is quickly becoming my least favourite forest in all of Equestria. What was your message then?"

(While it's not really necessary, maybe Wander should make a History Check for funsies...)

(Maybe he should!

I'd like to give everypony a couple more seconds in-game, a few more hours out-of-game to react to this minorly major reveleation. The message will then be given.)

"Empty night!" Plug shouts, leaping backwards.

"How apt," the not-pony says, lowering his head once more. He leans, probably accidentally, into Grizzle's blade, which stands once more at the ready.

[My thoughts exactly.

Except I got a 2. That plus skill plus Scorch makes 16, and even if Freaky Knowledge applies I doubt I'll get much...]

Wandering Eye can recall no records of such a creature in Old or New Equestria. However, descriptions of similar creatures, though much less pony in shape, lead him to believe this is probably a visitor from Beyond.

...probably.