Dragon's Feud

The dogs both kind of blink as a multitude of angry non-dogs proceed to yell at them. The less talkative one scratches his head, glancing towards the woods behind the group, while the other finally works up an answer. "Small bug po-ny in jar is right. We keep talking, Big Minotaur help get wagon out of trap, then Dragon comes to talk to po-nies, and decides what to do with wagon. That's fair." He seems to suggest, and the other dog nods along. "And Armor po-ny STOPS SMASHING DOG PITS!" He concludes, yelling at the pit- at which point Mossberg's screeching immediately goes quiet. "...Yes, good. Thank you."

In the Pit, Mossberg's thrashing manages to loose one of his heavy forelegs, which he proceeds to flail around in an attempt to free himself further. Chassis ducks a heavy swing and grabs him, and holds on enough to hit the button, causing him to freeze, still roaring until the reset times out- and then he goes silent.

Once Mossburg’s eyes darken, Chassis waits a few seconds before pressing the button again. Mossburg’s eyes reilluminate as he emits a short melody. Chassis slides down off his neck, and stands in front of him as he finishes starting back up.

After a few seconds, Mossburg slows lifts his head to focus on her. If his face were capable of expression, Chassis imagined he would be glaring at her.

”Observation. I am still in the enclosed location that distressed me before.”

”But you’re not trapped anymore. Look!”

The robot’s head turns enough for him to see the ramp, then turns back.

”Observation. My movement is impaired. Caution. I will attempt to remove myself from my current state. Please stand clear.”

Chassis steps back as Mossburg digs his free hoof into the floor of the pit and tries to pull himself free. Despite his strength, the dirt still hampers his progress.

Chassis disconnects the tracer cables from the wagon, brings them over, and connects them to Mossburg, leaving the wagon ends to fall to the floor of the pit. As she does so, one of the stones moves within reach of his free leg to give him something to leverage against.

”Atlas!” she calls. ”Need some muscle down here!”

Rolls:

Atlas's ear flicks at the summon, and he turns to glance at the pit. "You kids play nice, now." Atlas says, before heading towards the pit.

Deciding that ramps are for losers, he takes a running jump into the pit, banking on his natural toughness and instincts to mitigate the damage when it comes. He tucks into a clumsy roll as he comes out of the fall, stumbling slightly but grinning as he brushes dust off his shoulders. "Heh - should do that more often! Alright, what needs muscling? Because Muscle is my middle name! At-Muscle-as. Wait, no. How do middle names work with single word names, anyway?"

Grabbing the cables, Atlas calls out, "Prepare to be liberated, Bucket-o-Bolts!" before flexing his mighty muscles and giving the cable a nice firm tug.

Actions:

"If you didn't want Armor Pony trashing your pits, maybe you shouldn't have put him in it in the first place," Pumpkin comments. "Good luck, buddy," she says to Atlas as he goes back to help out.

"So... Po-nies wait for bo-oss, huh?" she asks, giving a few flaps of her wings that lifts her higher before she spreads them out, and lets herself float down back to the ground. She taps a hoof impatiently.

"You're at least getting paid for all this, right? Because if you're spending all day hiding in a bush and digging holes, they'd better be doing more than playing a game of fetch with you after this mess."

nightlight wrote:
"You're at least getting paid for all this, right? Because if you're spending all day hiding in a bush and digging holes, they'd better be doing more than playing a game of fetch with you after this mess."

'I doubt that.' Lucky Shot weighted in on the conversation. The sight of two Diamond Dogs standing in front of him, combined with the fact that they did just stumbled in and escaped out of one of their traps, slightly unnerved him but standing next to Pumpkin Spice, a teammate who seemed to know what she was on about, filled him with determination. 'Dragons are notorious greedy creatures, if one believes the stories.'
And wasn't there that one time with Princess Sparkle's assistent?
Lucky Shot looked from one Diamond Dog to the other. 'If that's true and you aren't getting paid for all of this, what other bargain did the dragons promise the Diamond Dogs in order to get them to throw in their lot with huge, scaly, fire-breathing lizards?'

In the Pit:
Being submerged in loose dirt, Mossberg can't get enough leverage to pull himself free, but when Atlas grabs the cables, the two of them manage to haul the robot a little further, freeing his other leg, and giving him an easier time of it. With his other leg free, and Atlas still pulling, Mossberg can now dig his way out, leaving most of the pile in place to be used as an unsteady ramp. Whether or not it can support the wagon, though....


Topside:
The dogs look at each other, fishing for an answer, and then, "Dragons make deal with Alpha. Alpha leads pack, we do as Alpha says!" "And Alpha says that working with Dragons will pay off for pack!" "Alpha also says that Dogs are in charge, not po-nies, so no more questions!" They look a little more sure of themselves, a little more confident now that the Minotaur is gone- though the nearer of the two can't help but keep glancing at Cherry's drawn crossbow.

Chassis breathes a sigh of relief as her robot emerges from the dirt ramp...then a grunt of confusion as he turns and starts up the ramp the instant Atlas lets go, dragging the cables behind him and ignoring the wagon entirely.

”What the…? Wait! MOSSBURG! Where are you going?!”

Mossburg does not respond until he reaches the top of the ramp, whereupon he turns to face her, lies down, and crosses his forelegs in front of him.

”Response. I am transferring myself to a location I find to be less distressing.”

Chassis’s ears start burning at her robot’s rebellion, at the same time that a chill hits the back of her head.

”Uh...we still have to get the wagon out,” she rebuts. ”You’re the only thing we have capable of pulling it.”

He looks past her to the wagon, then back down at her.

”Observation,” he says, ”You never keep anything of appreciable value in the vehicle, and there is a possibility that the initial fall into the enclosure may have caused structural damage. That combined with the vehicle’s unwieldy size and weight will render forward progress difficult, if not prohibit it entirely. Damage assessment and repairs on the vehicle will require more time than those previously identified as enemies will require to force its relinquishment. This problem may also apply to sufficiently repairing and reinforcing the exit path I created during my recent ordeal to support the vehicle’s weight combined with my own.”

Mossburg’s eyes glow brighter and his voice lowers an octave.

”Extraction of the vehicle will also require that I re-enter the enclosure, and I refuse to do so.”

For a moment, Chassis considers what her robot had said. He’d made several valid points. Yes, Chassis COULD get the wagon out of the pit. She COULD assess the damage, and possibly repair it enough for it to remain operable. But with the dragons and Diamond Dogs factored into the equation, there wasn’t any guarantee that she’d have the time to do it all without making the party even more vulnerable to attack.

And besides that, what were they going to do with it? The most obvious thing they would do. Destroy it so the ponies couldn't use it.

She sighs in defeat, and turns to approach the wagon with her horn lit. She uses the stones to lift it by the frame so she can get the wheels off, salvages other parts and materials with tools and telekinesis, and transmutes them as needed to create a second wagon small enough for a normal pony to pull alone. When it is completed, she opens the door to the front compartment on the mobile home and begins transferring supplies out of it and into the smaller wagon; rope, towing chains, blocks of wood, a coil of water hose, three canvas canopies (one large, two small), and the stakes and supporting rods used to set them up.

When the front compartment is empty, Chassis moves on to the interior of the wagon proper. The fire extinguisher, the foodstuffs in the cupboards and whatever bedding could be folded small enough to fit goes into her IBOTI device, while the comforter is wrapped around the pillows and deposited into the other wagon. Everything else Chassis had brought into Ponyville, she’d left back in Ponyville.

After one last sweep to ensure the wagon was indeed empty, Chassis closes her IBOTI device, hitches herself to the smaller wagon, and pulls it out of the pit. Then she turns around and lights her horn again, her expression more emotionless than her robot’s.

The stepping stones position themselves above what’s left of the mobile home, then plunge downward into it in unison, smashing their way through it before proceeding to alternate crushing from the top and from the sides, until all that remains is a pile of sawdust, wood splinters, and broken steel. Their task concluded, the stones disappear.

As Chassis watches, a notepad and a mechanical pencil slide out from her vest pocket. The notepad flips to a page with four other entries, and the pencil writes:

Combination Mobile Home and Workshop Mk V
Decommissioned near Ponyville - approx 1:00pm, local time.
Possible structural damage due to falling into a pit trap. Unable to remove from pit and exact repairs due to presence of unfriendly creatures nearby.

Rolls & Abilities:

The pegasus gives a nod to Lucky.

"He's right, you know. Ponyville's had a few dealings with dragons before. Never pretty, and they really like taking stuff from others. You think they'd have so many gems if they're in the habit of giving them away?

"Look, just between you and me, I've done internships before. Deals like this always sound great coming in, but they're going to be hoofing over the short end of the stick first, you know? You got to watch your alpha's back. And if those dragons don't give you everything you deserve, you get out of there, or you end up working 16 hours a day, getting 'Candy Striper' put on your resume instead of 'Intern,' having to sneak out of air vents to see your friends, and the free coffee they promised in the break room is just this gross powder stuff you put in water."

She pauses, realizing she's gone off track a little.

"Point is, I know how to deal with all this stuff, but you're probably new at this. So don't let those dragons push you around even one. single. inch. or they're going to trample all over you."

~I'll leave her with you,~ Helmaroc takes off the breezie bottle, slipping the carry strap around Pumpkin's neck. ~I'll see where the dragon is now,~"

Peony looks up at Pumpkin grumpily, and attempts to form a mental connection with the pegasus, her antenna glowing. "Open pony mind. I want talk without shouting."

As the link connects Pumpkin can hear the breezie's angry voice say, Helmaroc go to see where dragon coming from. I hear Hellie in head so we have warning. I see young dragon coming before, should arrive soon. Need be ready.

Meanwhile, Helmaroc sweeps the surrounding treetops, looking for any trace of the dragon.

The dogs seem to think about what Pumpkin says, and one offers a counter point. "Dogs job to help dragons beat po-nies. Po-nies not beat yet, so dogs not paid yet. But dogs did get share of po-ny castle and from wagons on the road. Deal is fair, and-" He's cut off by something he spots behind you all, and stops speaking. Helmaroc catches sight of the dragon, with a split second to warn Peony before he leaves the cover of the trees and flaps his way over to the road. He is definitely a young dragon, white, and a bit on the heavy side. A few errant spines adorn his head, but his back and tail are smooth. "What's this I hear about a couple of ponies driving wagons the wrong way?" He taunts with a victorious grin- which falters for a moment as he spots both the larger-than-himself-minotaur, and the robot. Still he comes over to settle on the road, placing the group between them and the dogs. Helmaroc spots another two dogs scampering out of the woods after them, but they keep their distance on the other side of the pit. "You trying to escape? We're not here to stop you- right after you pay the toll."

Suddenly having a breezie in a jar around her neck is a little surprising, to say the least. She tilts her head to one side, making a face as she tries to properly get her mind synced up with Peony's properly. Thankfully, it's easy to tell when she gets it right. The connection is announced with waves of anger in every syllable. By all rights, it should have caused her brain to burst into (angry) flames.

"Right, right. Relax, will you?" she says to apparently nopony at all, as far as the others are concerned. She goes back to listening to the diamond dogs.

The castle? They had the-... of course they had the castle. It just suddenly vanished before the dragons came along. How they managed to move a whole castle is a mystery, but maybe she could get them to slip up and say something about where it is...

She never gets the chances. A new voice chimes in. "Who the hay are-" she begins, turning. "... you..." She finds herself staring at a stomach. She cranes her neck up, then a little further up to look at the dragon's face. She swallows. They looked a lot smaller when they were flying over Ponyville during migrations.

"Uh... What toll?" she says, still in the process of regaining her composure.

Chassis’s eyebrow goes up as her horn lights. Her telekinesis detaches the tracer cables from Mossburg, coils them up, and places them in the makeshift wagon as she takes the initiative of unhitching herself from it. She also reaches out to her AURA to make sure it’s still active before letting her magic dissipate.

”And I assume your plan is to attack us if we don’t pay up?”

Mossburg steps between Chassis and the dragon, his head low and his gaze fixed on the dragon’s eyes.

”Caution. A violent course of action would be...ill-advised.”

Rolls:

"Toll? TOLL?!"

Pushing against her bottle, the carry-jar lifts off Pumpkin's chest ever so slightly as Peony glares at the dragon. "You make pit, crash pony wagon, hurt ponies, have stupid dog grunts harass ponies, waste precious time, disturb forest's peace, and you still ask for TOLL?"

"We have giant robot and minotaur, pony with magic and weapon, lightning eagle -" Helmaroc lets off an intimidating screech from above, releasing sparks in her wake as she comes down to a hover next to the group. "You not stand chance against this group. You will FEAR US."

Persuasion for Psychic Speaking: 1d20 (14) + 18 (Skill) + 5 (FK: Psychic Powers™) + 2 (PS Bonus) + 1 (Grandeur Bonus)= 40

"I didn't disturb the forest!" The Dragon retorts indignantly, but he looks over the arrayed group again, and then at the supplies in the makeshift wagon. "...Yeah, I don't want any of that anyway. Nevermind, you ponies just get out of here." It's hard to tell if he was intimidated or not, though he sounds a little less confident. The dogs, certainly frightened themselves, make no effort to argue against his decision. "Armor po-ny be careful, not fall into any more traps."

Chassis smiles as her magic hitches her back to her wagon. Mossburg returns his eyes to their normal brightness and relaxes his posture.

”Thank you. We’ll be on our way.”

Violet slinks over to Pumpkin and whispers to her. "This guy sounds like he's in charge around here, and probably knows where all of the traps and dogs are. Should we improvise and get him?

Chassis doesn’t hear Violet’s whisper. Mostly because Mossburg began speaking to the Diamond Dog that addressed him almost the instant Chassis finished what she was saying.

”Information. I have no means of detecting your traps, so avoidance will be difficult. My gross weight is three thousand five hundred pounds, so it is unlikely that the covers hiding your traps will support me. If you wish for me to avoid further entrapment, it would be wise to lay sticks or stones over where your traps are hidden to indicate their presence to me.”

The dog glances at the other, who shrugs, and then at the dragon, who nods. "...I not think your weight that gross. Armor Po-ny look very healthy." The Dragon facepalms while the other dog nods encouragingly.

It took Lucky Shot a couple of seconds to proces what had happened in the past minute or so. He was standing next to Pumpkin Spice, engaged in a dialogue with some Diamond Dogs, when all of a sudden their feathered friend dropped the bottled breezy around Pumpkin's neck and flew off at the exact moment that a DRAGON stomped out of the bushes with even more Diamond Dogs in tow. Lucky didn't have much experience with dragons. One could even say that, the occasional friendly nod and "hi" to Spike at the library aside, he had, beyond a shadow of a doubt, absolutely no experience with dragons. Well, he did know that they yielded between the 20.000 and 25.000 experience but that was beside the question.

We are so dead...

As he was quietly making peace with his lot in life and regretting all the things he never did, Lucky noticed some odd things. One: they were still breathing. Two: the little winged fairy-like being was going completely mental inside of her bottle. And three, and he still couldn't believe it: the Dragon backed down, letting them pass unharmed and with their supplies intact.

This is complete bonkers...

He needed something that could reassure him that the world hadn't gone topsy-turvy yet. Lucky pulled out his headphones, cocked them a bit crooked to leave one ear free to listen in and switched on his vintage walkman.* The smooth, soothing tones helped him to relax a bit.
ATTACK THE DAY!
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* Prepping Spellbook from Lucky's destiny feature, meaning that he can give a +20 on a skill check in the next 5 minutes or so. You know, in case we need it.

Sweet Celestia's crystal coronet. Pumpkin Spice stares down at the little breezie in the rattling jar. Yelling at a dragon. The reptile's words seemed to have poured gasoline on the fire of her already impressive anger. Pumpkin's pretty sure she can pick up the faint scent of scorched earth in the breezie's wake. She was glad she was on this side of her fury. By all rights, the dragon and dogs should have exploded by now. Possibly twice.

Be still, her little filly heart, this was actually working. Pumpkin helpfully holds up the jar in a hoof so the breezie can yell closer at eye-level.

The breezie also helpfully provides a useful shift of attention. The pegasus catch's Violet's eye, grins just a little, but shakes head. She mouths, "later." She's got something else in mind.

"Great, now that we got this over with, we can all get out of each other's manes! Just one thing: bucket head has a point. It'd help a lot if you told us where not to go so we can skip doing this all over again when we fall in another pit."

"Right - We're all friends here, aren't we?" Atlas waggles his brows emphatically. "Don't want to interrupt a friend's day because we fell in a silly hole. Just point us down the right way and we'll be out of your hair. Er - scales. Spines? Anyway. Don't want to have to bother you any more than we need to."

Cherry regarded the dragon slowly with a baleful gaze. "Yes, it would be a very bad thing if we fell into another whole. I am very cranky after being rudely woken up. You understand the value of sleep, right? Well, I haven't had enough of it, and I am very angry about that. And if my peaceful journey were interrupted again, I would be... quite put off." She gave the dragon and the dogs a cold glare.

Persuation Roll:

The dragon scowls at Cherry and Pumpkin. "Fine, you can have your guide. Just get going and don't come back." He looks over at the dogs. "You, the taller, less dumb one. Take them up the road." The taller, less dumb dog sighs and goes to stand next to Chassis' new and improved tinywagon. "This way, po-ny."

With a brisk nod, Chassis starts for the path, double-check that the group’s Diamond Dog guide was coming with her. Mossburg follows behind the dog, undisturbed by the creature’s poor hygiene.

Chassis waits until the party's put some distance between them and the other dogs tending to the ruined pits behind them before addressing the one guiding the party.

”Gotta admit, that was a pretty well-made trap. The way the top blended so well with the road, we never would’ve known that pit was there if we hadn’t fallen into it. Was that your handiwork?”

The dog leads the group around the already made pit, while the dragon ensures the other dogs set about rebuilding and resetting the traps. "All dogs dug all the pits, dragon and Alpha told us if they looked convincing." He shrugs, leading Chassis up the side of the road.