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DF Community Games & Stories / Re: Shadytrails (My Little Fortress)
« on: July 25, 2015, 01:44:53 am »
and TerracottaSpoiler: 7th Hematite 223 (click to show/hide)
These were stressful times. Fargo had become possessed by some strange spirit, and then Jack Pine had suffered a similar experience. In both instances, the victims had created objects with unknown purpose: a crown from Fargo and a puzzle box from Jack. Silver Rush kept trying to find some rhyme or reason to the bizarre occurrences, but he had made no breakthroughs. He continued to contemplate the consequences as he strolled over to the town well, intending on quenching his thirst after a hard day at work.
As he made his way over to the well, he could see a small unicorn mare crawling over to the well. Her over-exaggerated movements seemed to dismiss any possibility of injuries, but she continued to keep her body close to the ground. There appeared to be splotches of bright red covering her lighter red coat at random, and she seemed to be muttering something to herself. As she crawled, her head turned to see Silver Rush, and she did something almost inexplicable - she took several regularly shaped objects from a pocket, and threw them at the ground. She seemed to be counting them up, before nodding and turning back to the well.
The bat pony was confused at this mare’s behavior, “Um, hello there. I haven’t seen you around before, so I take it that you are one of the new arrivals?” He then looked down at the strange items on the ground, “What exactly are you doing?”
The mare froze. Slowly she turned back to the bat pony, before looking to see who he might be talking to. Seeing the dearth of any other competitors for his attention, her eyes went wide. “He must be able to see invisibility,” she muttered almost under her breath. “But I passed my sneak check enough he can’t see me. Just knows there’s somepony here. Quick, horn, we’ve got to do this quickly! Before he tells the almonds. Or tries to stop usssss.”
“Are... you alright?” the gray stallion questioned after hearing her speaking to herself. He couldn’t quite make out what she said, “Do you need help with something? I can get you some water, if that’s what you came here for.” Silver lowered the bucket down into the well, bringing up a shimmering pail filled with cool liquid.
“Nohw. He’s trying to stopppp us. Quickly!” she says at a more audible tone. She brings up a bar of a brown substance that seems to be arranged in regular squares, and takes a bite. “Yiiiisss. Now I have the energyyyyy!” Her horn, previously only dimly lit with her telekinesis, begins to start shining, and particles appear to be erupting from its sides, filled with light.
After taking in some of the refreshment, he was about to offer some to this new face when she takes the weirdness up a notch. “Stop you? Stop you from what? I don’t even know what you’re doing.” Silver Rush was starting to become uncomfortable, not knowing what Terracotta’s intentions were with that glowing horn of her’s.
Terracotta manages somehow to retain sufficient concentration to draw another group of those regularly-shaped objects from a pocket and throw them in front of her, between herself and the bat pony. “Yisss. Now the water will be reeeeeddd!” Her horn starts shooting small sparks towards the well, and the water within the pail. As the sparks land, they start turning small portions of the water a thin red colour. With the exertion, Terracotta’s attention seems to fade from maintaining her sneaking posture, and she rises up, making a slurping sound as she finishes her magic spell.
The cat-eyed pony backed away a few steps upon seeing the rain of magic power. What kind of pony is this? Wait, she’s not possessed too, is she? Her behavior doesn’t seem the same as Fargo’s did, though. His face grew more serious, “Who are you, really?”
“He knows,” she hisses to nobody in particular. “I told you, brain! Quiet! Go awaaaay.” She doesn’t seem to be paying too much attention to the person she is talking about.
Okay, this was taking a concerning turn. Without saying anything else, the fanged horse slipped off to search for somepony who might be able to help him with this. Fargo and Isolde were first on his mind.
As he takes off, he’d perhaps notice the large griffon off in the distance, walking slowly around the fort with his halberd, shield and armor. He really needed to find a hobby or something, as he usually ended up spending his free time doing the exact same thing thing he did while on duty.
Fargo was indeed about to find something new to do. Silver impatiently walked over to the armored griffon, a bit of distress obvious in his expression. “Fargo, we may have another problem.” He glanced back towards the well, “I’m not certain about this, but I think one of the new residents might already be possessed by the same spirit that got you. I think you should come take a look at this.”
He stopped the moment he notices silver approach him. He raised a set of claws up to greet silver, and opened up his beak to speak, but is stopped when he hears silver beat him to it. He listens closely, and gets a very nervous look in his eyes when he hears this. “Okay, show me who it is and I’ll take care of it, friend.”
The pony begins leading him back towards the well, “I don’t know what her name is, but she’s acting really bizarre and won’t give sensible answers to my questions. She also has some strange magic, so be wary when her horn starts to glow.”
He gets a big frown. “Tell me, what has she said?” He needed to make sense of this all. “Is she gathering supplies?” He didn’t know what to make of this, but he needed to figure out what was really going on.
“Not that I could tell. At least not yet. When I asked her who she really was, she said ‘he knows’ and then started talking as if her brain was a different entity than she was. It… it’s probably easier just to show you.” Once the two got within speaking distance of Terracotta, Silver stopped and nodded to indicate that this was the pony in question.
Terracotta has changed her posture, and is now levitating almost a foot above the ground, but upside down. She has not, however, changed her mutterings, and is still talking to an entity known as her horn. “Noowh. We’ll eat the chocolate peoples. Yiss.”
Fargo just stopped and stared at her, and let out a loud sigh, before slowly approaching her, “Um... you know being upside down for long periods of time is no good for your head, right?” He was confused, but wanted to see what happened if he played this cool at first.
“Quiet, brain!” she yelled to no-body in particular. “Stop controlling them to speak at me!” Without any further ado she retook the bar of chocolate from one of her saddlebags and began to munch on it.
Fargo slowly walked a little closer, tilting his head a little. “Eh.. are you okay?” He looked back at silver, shrugging. “Did you get hit in the head at all? are you alright? Did you smoke or inject something illegal?”
“No, just because they’re alive doesn’t make it cannibalism,” she said, taking no apparent noticed of Fargo or Silver. “It makes it delicious.”
Fargo poked a claw at her head “Eh, excuse me?” He wanted to force her attention.
“It has the almonds!” she screeches, and hovers away from the griffon, making some gesture apparently intending to banish the almonds from her presence.
He grabs at her shoulder and gives her a shake as she tries to hover away. “Madam, are you ill?!” He seems to be getting annoyed now. “I need an answer, else I’ll be forced to take you to the our doctor.”
The bat pony cringed at how this was progressing. Maybe she was just plain crazy. That, in itself, wasn’t very reassuring. At least the spirit left Fargo and Jack after accomplishing its goal. Insanity, however, wasn’t something that just went away on its own.
“Arrrhhh! It burns! Take the almonds awwaaaay,” she says, in between screeches and other mutterings to the effect that the mind worms are behind it all.
He grabbed a hold of her more firmly, his claws getting a good grip on her. “Silver, this isn’t a possession, I’m taking her to the doctor, come over her and help. Eh, I don’t want her to fight back and run off into the woods or something.” He says coldly as he dropped his halberd to the ground and used his other set of claws to grab onto her. “She needs to see a professional.”
“Right. That sounds like a good idea. Do you need any help or should I go let Dr. Gunther know to expect the two of you?” Silver was now worried about what Terracotta would do whilst be detained.
“Nooowh. Nooo.” Terracotta’s horn began to build up with light as magical energy began to course through it. “You will diee!” With a crack of magical energy, three figures depicting a mix of griffons and pony in armour and with unrealistically large weapons appeared, and began hitting the griffon without causing and real amount of harm.
“Grab her hind legs and we carry her off to the hospital.” He says, as he begins to try and drag her off.
The worried equine did as instructed, but it was a rather difficult task to grab onto to her bucking hind legs when all he had to work with were hooves. He elected to hover off of the ground with his wings to free up his front limbs as much as possible, managing to wrap around her enough to prevent her from escaping. It was a difficult struggle for him to maintain his grip, however.
“Nooooooo! I am invincible!” More cracks mark a greater enumeration of figurines popping out and continuing to flail at the restrainers.
Silver winced at the onslaught, “Ow! Miss, please! We are only trying to help you!”
“Don’t talk to her, she’s not making sense.” He said, moving far faster now that he had the help of Silver. He looked behind him as he carries her, trying keep an eye on where he’s heading. He didn’t seem affected at all by the mare’s weight, carrying her like she weighed nothing.
“What diddd they pay you? I can double it! Five chocolate bars! No, TEN chocolate bars! Leeeeet mee gooooo!” she says, as she continues to call in her trusted allies.
Her pleas were ignored as the two of them continued to carry her towards the hospital. It barely took a minute to get there by flying, and now the bat pony was wondering what Gunther could do to detain her. It wasn’t like they had any padded rooms in town.
Given that the hospital was still partly incomplete, it only takes seconds to locate Gunther up in his room. Or more specifically said griffon emerges to discover what all the fuss was about.
“Gunther! This mare is delusional and it’s unlike what affected me and Mr. Jackas- eh, Mr. Jackpine!” He said as the two land down in front of the hospital, still holding onto the mare. “We need you to take care of her!”
Gunther gives him a deadpan look. Oh boy. This again. Why were crazy people moving out here again, and what exactly was he supposed to do about it? “Elaborate, please.”
Silver shook his head, “She’s acting paranoid, talking about things that don’t make any sense and claiming to be invincible. She also told us that we were going to die.”
Fargo sighs. “Just try and talk to her and see what happens. She’ll do something.” He keeps holding onto her, making sure she can’t move too much.
Alright then. Gunther leans closer to her and asks, “Miss, what ails you?”
“They bring the almoooonds. I admit nothing!” she says, in as composed a tone as she can manage, which isn’t much.
Mmhmm. Gunther looks more closely at her pupils to try to guess if she was under the influence of something. “Have you eaten anything unusual lately? Anything you found growing out in the woods, for example? Maybe some unusual mushrooms?”
“I deny everything. The brain worms will not help you force it out of me.” She tries to stare the interrogator down. “It will all be red. Ahahahahaha!”
“She won’t answer, we’ve both tried.” says fargo, “Where should I put her?” He asks, not wanting to have to carry her anymore.
In a padded room back where she came from, please? Gunther shakes his head. “I don’t know. If it’s something she got into then maybe it’ll wear off soon. If not, I don’t know. Take her to one of the rooms for now. All I can do is make sure she doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“Eh, fair enough.” He gives silver a little nod, before starting to take her off again.
“Nooooo!” said Terracotta with a small cry.
“I’ll try to keep an eye on her,” Gunther says, holding a claw to his forehead. “Might want to keep some of the guard nearby just in case…”
