To restore or forsake the past (Game A)

It is said 'The bigger we are, the harder we fall'. I don't think truer words could be said about the ponies. The legends say that long ago there was a land known as Equestria where the ponies were free to laugh and play and enjoy the day as carefree as they could under the benevolent rule of the solar sisters. That there were six ponies who represented the best of us all who rose to resolve any challenge or threat that dared to confront the Empire. But that was a long, time ago...

The world's changed so much since those old legends. There was the advancements, technology reaching heights to achieve what shouldn't have been possible, miracles that transcended the wildest imaginations, and yet at the cost of so much devastation to the world. Then the scientist turned their attention towards fixing the world, to bring it back and repair the damages their reckless advancements had done. It only partially worked.

The world was fixed, forests returned, the waters were cleared, and the air was clean, but the forest gained a mind of it's own. It struck out at the technology and the ponies that coveted it, destroying all in it's wake and the world was plunged into this new dark age. Now though we've managed to strike a peace with the forest, we exist as it does and do what we can to not anger it. The Historia Derelicta keeps us safe, they condemn the horrid advancements of the past to keep from angering the forests and keep us all safe from the destruction the past warrants.

But then there's Phoenix. They say the world can be fixed, that with the technologies of the past, we don't have to live in fear anymore. There are many that don't trust them, or the sinful weapons of the past they use, but could they really be that wrong? The forest isn't kind and has killed far more than it's saved. Maybe they're right and everypony would be better if the forest, and the world were restored to how they were in the past back when technology was used.

Regardless of either faction, that doesn't really change the average daily happenings in the small village of Grainden. The common ponies in the relatively small village going about their works whether that be farming, woodworking, or manning stands, stores, or stalls to sell goods to the other members of the small population. Set on the only slight elevation around and overlooking the large fields that gave the town it's name, Grainsden was also known as a pioneering town set fairly close to the forest. It's haunting darker green's far closer than some might have been comfortable with, but the prospects on cheap land that was suitable for farming proved to be too great a temptation for the citizens.

The common folk however aren't quite the center of this tale, and instead we'll shift focus now to something abnormal to the daily happenings that have become such common place among such common ponies, and that takes us to the only tavern/inn in the town. A fairly large building staffed by kind and popular ponies of the settlement with fairly regular patrons. Specifically though, the abnormality came in the form of a little filly who burst through the doors of the tavern. She was an earth pony, dull green in color with a orange-ish brown mane and tail. Her tear stricken eyes only accented her panic stricken face as she almost screamed and cried frantically. "HELP! Please, somepony, anypony, I need help!" The filly's eyes hurriedly looked about the assembled ponies, searching for the unfamiliar faces that'd mark adventurers, a common profession in this new day and age.

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Players:
WiserOdin032402 (Bloodstone)
Brony_Khaos (Oeilde Verre)
Sharp (Sharp C. Note)
The Pariah (Shadow and Lady Anja)
Xereth (Griff)

Shadow swirled the brandy in his glass slowly, glancing at his travelling partner. Dressed in a dark red Victorian era dress, Lady Anja was the sight to behold... and would have been even more so were her hood not lifted up to cover her face. As if sensing his gaze, she glanced at him, revealing her startling grey eyes. "Nothing... just thinking about our future," he said quietly. She nodded slightly and he smiled.

That smile faded as the filly burst into the room, and he glanced at Anja, who nodded. Together they rose, Shadow reaching for the dagger at his belt in case someone tried to harm the filly, whilst Anja vanished from view entirely, though the filly would hear a gentle voice whisper that everything was going to be okay.

The cries of the earth pony did not escape the ears of a strange stallion. He wore the black clothes of a mourner, as if he were going to a funeral, but a Historia badge on his front contrasted with the clothing. His coat was light brown, strangely plain in comparison to most of the population, while his mane was dark green, almost black, flecked with red spots. He made his way over to the filly, slowly, as if limping. He stopped when he witnessed a pony disappear, and the other draw a dagger. He shot the pony with a dagger a glare, as if to say 'Sheathe it'.

This filly had nothing to do with his mission anyhow, he was looking for technology here, but as a member of Historia Derelicta, he was obliged to help those in need. He approached her, gazing down at her, and he smiled, trying to appear non-threatening. "Hello little one, what seems to be the matter?"

Sharp sat facing the doorway, a novel lazily floating in her white telekinetic grasp. Every so often, she’d flip to the next page and take a sip from a mug resting in front of her, always in that order.  The white unicorn mare wore a black robe that could probably be compared to a cape or a cloak, only it had sleeves and did a really good job of leaving most of her features to the imagination, showing her visage only from the neck up. Her mane, long and black in appearance hung behind her loosely.  

Very abruptly, an almost-screaming and quite definitely panicked filly interrupted the mare’s lazy routine with her cries for help. She glanced over her novel and sighed. "I should probably do something, shouldn’t I?" Sharp thought to herself, rolling her eyes.  Gently closing and stashing the book in her satchel, she  joined the slowly growing crowd of ponies gathering around the filly. Giving the younger pony room by standing a comfortable distance away, she awaited the filly’s response to the oddly dressed stallion’s question.

Griff was sitting by a table in a far corner, his head on the table as if he was drunk asleep, or just merely pretending to be. Next to him was a large mug of beer he just barely touched. He was wearing large dark-green slightly torn cloak, obviously used from all the travels, with a large hood to cover his whole head. The cloak covered most of his body.

As the little filly bursted into the tavern, he lightly lifted his head to look at the commotion going on. Griff watched as numerous others hurried to the filly that cried for help for one reason or another, and decided to just observe before downing half of his drink and carefully standing up and making his way to the filly. He approached the filly while making sure his face was still covered by his hood, and stayed quiet as he observed.

Atom enters the travern, distracted by a thought he was following, and lost in his thoughts missed the small filly and stumbled over her.

Landing face first, it takes him a second to get back up and to realize what he stumbled across, quickly helping her back up and says "I am so sorry, here, have this whistle thingy. It makes funny noises and has blinking lights." as he pulls out a little metallic whistle and blows into it to show the filly.

As he looks up from the filly he finally notices the other ponies around it and says to them "What? Never had a thought in your life interesting enough that you overlooked a little filly?"

The various efforts to comfort the filly seemed to be working slightly, or at least enough to where her bawling was tapering off and she might be able to speak again. "W-we were *sniffle* pl-playhing *sniffle* outsi-ow," she suddenly cried out as Atom stumbled over her. The crying started to resume at full blow until he pulled out the whistle and demonstrated what the obvious piece of technology could do.

The filly's reaction was one more or less repeated by several of the tavern's patrons. Other members however shared a similar themed reaction still. The filly recoiled in shock, letting the piece drop to the ground with a bit of a shriek. "NO, keep the bad things away from me!" She cried as she scooted away from the spot and back against the wall and continued to cry. "It's *sniffle* because of that stuff *sniffle* my brother fell, and now *sniffle* he, he might *sniffle*, he might be de-hehehead," she wailed more.

Shadow glanced at Anja, before glaring at Atom. Moving to the filly, Anja still invisible to everyone but him, he gave a welcoming smile, and bent down to face her. "Everything is going to be okay darling. Would you take me to your brother? I promise he's going to be okay," he said, stroking her mane gently if she allowed him. Anja moved to the door, ready to follow the pair if the mare was willing to lead him.

Bloodstone was about to comfort the filly when a very rude stallion walked into the tavern and tripped over her, causing her to cry out. He moved forward, looking her over for injuries. Finding none, he turned to chastise the stallion for being careless, when the stallion in question flashed a whistle, then blew into it to light it up. One of Bloodstone's eyes twitched, and he stared for a second, before turning to Sharp. "You, citizen, I need you to check on the filly's brother."

Bloodstone turned back to Atom, radiating bloodlust whilst murderous intent was written all over his face. He began to move towards him, with his strange, limping gait. "That whistle is technology. Cease terrorizing the populace at once and set it down at once so that Historia Derelicta may destroy it." His horn lit up, coated in the same blood red magic that began to appear around Atom. "Failure to comply will result in the use of force."

If Atom tried to run Bloodstone would attempt to snare him with his magic. If all else failed, a mana beam to the chest would do the job, quick and dirty. Bloodstone hoped it didn't come to that.

"Well, that happened…" Sharp thought to herself. Atom’s entrance and the display of technology that followed had her slightly shocked. "That was… pretty stupid." she continued, her eyes briefly wandering towards the whistle that was now on the ground. The filly’s renewed crying, and her mentioning of technology being one the causes of her brother’s unfortunate, and sudden change in elevation, had Sharp’s interests piqued beyond helping the smaller pony. At least, they were until Bloodstone turned around and gave her an order, an order she was about to question by bringing up the fact that there were several ponies offering to do exactly what he’d ordered her to do, until she noticed the badge he was sporting.

Preferring to not get on the bad side of a pony who was probably about to get very upset, very quickly, Sharp nodded an affirmative.

“S-sure.”

Griff was about to come closer and attempt to talk to the filly when the incident happened. Seeing the angry Bloodstone, Griff took a step back and observed all of the ponies. He too, would offer to check on the filly's brother rather than stay in the crowded tavern and possibly get involved into fight. 'Historia dere-whatever and Phoenix, both are friggin' same. ' he thought to himself as he sneaked closer towards the exit and baring a decision in mind: check on filly's brother or observe the possible fight.

Once he reached the doorway, he stood on the side of it, making sure he wouldn't be standing in the way if someone were to attempt to run.

"Woah woah woah... Relax there. It's just a harmless toy I found during my research. I meant no harm." Atom said while backing away from Bloodstone a little. He then proceeded to reach into his left saddlebag to pull out a sheet of paper, "Here, this is my certificate of my university as a Historian. I am here looking into the remains of the old conflict that can be found here." And hands the paper to Bloodstone.

"And maybe before try to blast with that mana bolt, shouldn't we maybe try and help that little filly's brother? It sounds like he is in quite the pickle." Atom suggested to Bloodstone, hoping for a reasonable response from the stallion.

Most of the crowd inside the tavern seemed to still be on edge, but by now they were at least trying to feign interest in the events. Turning their attention back to their meals, conversations, or at least pretending to.

The filly nodded to the comforting gestures by Anja and slowly backed away out of the tavern, every step quivering until she was at the door and then through it quickly as if to hide from the intensity of the scene. Once on the other side of the threshold, she hesitated on the porch. Anxiously, she began to look about for ones who said they'd help her, and when at least one of them appeared, she'd begin leading the group towards the edge of the town.

The papers that Atom presented looked legit. Bearing all the proper signs of a standard Derelicta decree, even down to the Knight Commander Stalwart's signature, a notoriously hard thing to duplicate. As they read, Atom was an initiate into a new program that was supposed to remain secretive and had a goal to see about learning just enough of the old world technology to make it's detection and destruction easier for the whole of the Derelicta. The project was to be known as the University.

Bloodstone looked over Atom's papers, then at Atom, then back at Atom's papers. Yes the papers looked legit, but were they? He immediately saw massive discrepancies though. "So...you're part of a secretive program that researches tech so we can destroy it better? If your program is so secretive, then why did you just show off old world tech? Never mind that you said you were part of a university, and this thing called a historian." 

Bloodstone laughed a bit. "Now then, Historian sounds like it's spelled like Historia. Derelicta means to forsake, abandon or discard. Historia Derelicta is 'forsake history'. You didn't identify that you were forsaking the device right off the bat. I can understand secret research into technology, but what you did firmly plants you in violation of you contract. Present me your Historia Derelicta badge and recite your pledge if you want me to even think of taking you to trial!"

His horn charged up fully, and at this point, the snare under Atom would activate the moment he tried to run, and Bloodstone was prepared to shoot one of Atom's legs off with a mana bolt. This would get messy very fast if Atom tried to run away or attack him.

"Do you really think that if I were part of a secretive program by the Knight Commander himself, that I would be allowed to recite the pledge openly?" Atom had lowered his voice and spoke quietly to Bloodstone. "This is all part of a cover to help me get into Phoenix ranks. So you better not blow it."

"So while we're wasting our time here, shouldn't we be helping the young foal or what do you think the Knight Commander will think when he hears that you didn't just ruined a undercover operation but also failed to help a innocent child? I wouldn't want to stand in front of him when that happens." Atom said still quietly to Bloodstone, while looking him straight in the eyes.

A depraved, rabid cackling began to emanate from one corner of the bar; Bloodstone's earlier table stood at its epicenter, and the laughter slowly grew in intensity, both in regards to volume and the sheer insanity it betrayed.

Given this wondrous distraction, a bud of shadow crawled up along Bloodstone's side, moving quickly and swiftly coming to completely cover the paper in his hooves. In an instant, a red powder would gradually form on the surface of the paper, in a very particular pattern.
"Mien, chienne."
In an instant, the powder came alight, burning bright and red. The paper would quickly come aflame itself, and even if it were recovered swiftly, actually reading it would likely be near-impossible after this bit of burning.

Even as the paper began to ignite, a peculiar darkness was already racing along the floor, a target well in its sight. A tiny little piece of metal and plastic, worked into a glorious little noisemaker.
At the forefront of this darkness stood a pair of white ellipses and a half-ellipse, resembling some sort of insane smile, if one looked at it from the right angle. It did not, however, leave much time to consider this; one part of the shadows surrounded the whistle on the floor, and then the shadows began to leak out of the floorboards, taking on the shape of a pony in full gallop even as it formed into reality; one hoof always in shadow at any moment, the mysterious whistle clutched in one forehoof. It was running for the door, though there was a chance that at least somepony could stop the...thing, before then.
It laughed as it rose from the ground, some sort of, demonic, insane chortle that did not belong to a pony.

Perhaps this was why strange technology was so looked down upon. After all, what looked like a mere toy could be quite capable of literally anything. Including, apparently, summoning laughing shadow demons to destroy the world.

Shadow nodded to Anja, and they both followed the filly out of the room, content to leave the rest of the ponies to their madness. Shadow smiled to the filly gently as they stepped outside, and Anja reappeared silently, though not in a surprising way. "Please," she said gently to the filly. "Lead us to your brother."

The situation unfolding in front of Sharp gave her all the more reason to bug out of the Tavern, and, she did so to the best of her ability. Namely in the form of a quick teleportation spell past both Bloodstone, Atom, and the newly arrived shadow-thing.  A brisk paced trot to and out the door, Sharp was met with the filly and her two companions. “I uhh…” Sharp began, pausing to catch her breath. “I’m with you.” She looked at the trio in front of her and gave them her best smile. “Sharp!" she said. Realizing she essentially shouted an adjective at a group of strangers, she continued "Err, my name. Call me Sharp. Hi.” she said with an awkward wave.

Griff continued watching the argument between Bloodstone and Atom before noticing the shadow-like thing. "Yeah, okay, enough of that." he said as he walked out of the tavern, looking for the filly. When he finally found it and those around it, he slowly approaching, while still not saying a word and not exposing any part of his body other than legs.

What with the filly having already beginning to lead the others away from the tavern, she didn't notice the shadowy thing and merely kept walking with the additions of Sharp and Griff to the little group. "I- I'll try," she replied to Anja through tear stricken eyes and a sorrow filled voice. "Ih-it's a little outside the, the town. Oh-over near the hi-hi-hills," she went on while walking with the ponies towards the city gates.

Back in the tavern though, there was quite the exclamation by the turn of events. The citizens were already on edge, and then when the shadows began their little display, especially the bit with the papers burning, it started to convert to full on panic. Mares were hiding behind stallions, and a few stallions were hiding behind tables or pillars as a few screams and yelps resounded out. The bartender reached below the bar with his muzzle and when he came back up, a short wooden club that he sat on the bar. "If you two are gonna scrap, take it outside," he said sternly.

The moment the paper began to ignite, Bloodstone threw it right at Atom, meanwhile unleashing the mana bolt he had been charging as well. "I'll deal with you later. For now, Phoenix scum, you get to live." He said moved himself back a bit, positioning himself so he could get a better look at the cackling shadow pony. He tensed his legs and lunged forward, exerting his powerful muscles and managing to get closer to the door before limp-running into the way of the shadowy thing. This thing has to be fey! There's no way that's a demon. He used his magic to unbutton a part of his clothes, drawing his cold iron dagger out from between his ribs and readying an attack.

Shadow began to trot alongside the filly and he smiled at her. "If you want, I could carry you. That way, we'll be able to reach your brother even sooner. How dpes that sound?" He asked her, ready to pick her up if she accepted his offer.

Anja glanced quietly at the pair that had joined their group and she smiled to herself under her hood. "I am Lady Anja, and this is my partner, Shadow. Nice to meet you."

Sharp bowed slightly in greeting to Anja and her companion then matched their pace. "Anja is a peculiar name for a pony..." She thought to herself as she followed the group. "Mmm… Probably a nickname or something." she concluded with a nod as the filly revealed her brother’s location.

Griff went relatively unnoticed by Sharp, as she was more or less lost in her thoughts. With the two presumably capable ponies in front of her, Sharp felt as though she could briefly humor herself--- And humor herself she did. A sudden thought crossed her mind at around the same time Shadow offered to carry the filly.

The Historia pony was busy with whatever that shadow pony thing in the tavern was! That meant that the potential for technological rediscovery had grown exponentially…
The thought was enough to bring a small smile to her face.

That epiphany brought with it another realization, the filly had yet to tell any of them her name… "Eh, probably not important." Sharp shrugged. "I wonder if I’ll need any rope… Then again, telekinesis--- How heavy is her brother, I wonder… Average weight for a pony was, what again?" she mused mentally.


“Hey, how heavy is your brother?” Sharp absentmindedly asked.

Griff bowed to the group, even though barely visibly. He made sure to check every member of the group before coughing himself off. "The name's Griff." he shortly and silently said to the group, while keeping his focus on Shadow and Anja. There was something about them that Griff didn't particularly trust, but he decided to roll with it. They were all helping the filly after all, so Griff quickly attempted to erase the thought that they could be plotting anything evil at the moment. "Let's get moving, then." he said and was ready to follow.

The shadowpony stared at the knife-wielding psycho for only a few moments as he ran towards him, and then he just stopped.
Bloodstone would not have time to question this, however, as the pony melted into a pony-sized puddle of shadowstuff on the ground, and his darkness spread towards the back of the room yet again. It moved at speed, racing towards the back wall of the tavern, taking in as much shadow as possible on its way.
If not interrupted, the shadows on that wall would coalesce into a demonic shape, like the silhouette of a laughing jack-o-lantern, and it began to laugh; it was a deep, commanding chuckle, almost happy to be challenged.
Your move, pony ponies.