Piercing the ghostly veil

cryo helps out ash with stomping pyro out of the ice, the block cracks with each heavy stomp they made "As odd this may seem of breaking pyro out this way, he will be fine, we have been in worse situations before, this is somewhat normal to us, you'll be suprised how magic affects 2 beings not from this world"

As they where bashing pyro out of the block, the less foggy area around them seemed to get less foggy as the sky night was clearly vissible, having found a safe pocket as some short wooden fence and 2 gates opposite of eachother marked the area of the safe area, even the moon shined faint ray of light on the ground.

Ash noticed that it was a bit easier to see, and soon saw they were in that spot clear of the fog. "Well, this day just got a bit better. Fog's thin here. Maybe those skeletons won't follow us here," he said. Still, he continued bashing Pyro out of the ice. He thought it would be miserable to be frozen solid, and slightly wondered if it would be similar to being petrified by a cockatrice.

"Yeah... Hopefully." Griff added to what Ash said and looked up. "Say, shall I go take a quick look up there? My sharp eyes weren't much use in the fog, but perhaps they could be some use in the clearing." he proposed, still in his bird form on Ash's back as he lazily preened his own wings. "Or should I rather remain down here?"

"i do belive its better for you to remain down here griff, untill we get pyro out of there, he is the main firepower guy of the 4 of us...no pun intended... then you could look in the clearing, maybe take to the sky to see around better, maybe princess luna could comunicate with us since its night time"

After a bit of bashing, the front side of pyro was freed from ice, he then rather suddenly rose upp from his icy tomb like a mummy and looked around confusedly, and as the ice no longer held its prisoner, it quickly melted away, leting pyro move freely "Christ.....what happend? last thing i remember was a sudden cold flash and lots of shaking, and then this.."

Ash was glad Pyro was finally out, especially if Cryo's statement was completely true. "You got frozen solid," Ash said, "I'll spare you the details, but it was not your finest moment."

Ash then decided to at least turn his head to see if anything was nearby other than the four of them. He did not want any more surprises, but somehow thought there would be some anyway.

Griff exhaled in relief as Pyro was finally free from his icy prison. "To break the ice for you, and as Ash here already said, you got frozen. It's almost as if they found your weakness or something." Griff said and chuckled before looking up to the skies. "Well, you guys can try to reach out to Luna, but as for me, I'll try to reach for the fresh air in the skies above for now." the hawk said before suddenly taking off and flying upwards, hoping to get a decent look at the situation.

As Griff flew towards the now open sky, he could see the whole landscape being coverd by thick fog exept for some pockets of unaffected land similar to where they are curently, the mist coverd a large area south of ponyville even reaching into the everfree forest, it was also seen creeping along towards canterlot but rather slowly, but then, a faint flash of light eminated from the sky above as a etheral form of princess luna decended slowly past griff towards the ground where the others where.

pyro and cryo saw Luna decend to them and promtly bowed. "i see you 4 have made it this far in one day, but there is still alot ahead of you that needs to be done, i have come with a warning that this mist is altering the land it curently posses, terraforminng it, any memories of the land wont suffice here"

"whats worse is that it taps into the minds of the ponies that have been captured, bringing bits of the nightmare-dreamworld to these mistlands, bringing monsters and the deepest fears to reality to fight whoever is causing this" she said, pretty much ignoring fromalities att the moment due to the situation att hand, and that she looks like she has seen better days before this ordeal began, but she remains there if there are any questions that needs to be awnsered

Ash also bowed when Princess Luna came to them. He grimaced at the thought of not being able to use his previous knowledge of areas, as that was one advantage lost. The second part about the fears of the captured ponies was definitely the worst bit.

"Great, we're gonna have to fight the worst nightmares of everypony who got caught in this. Fifty bits we'll see a dragon at some point. Princess, is there a better way to deal with these creatures other than what we already have?" he asked.

Griff kept a sharp eye on areas around them, trying to figure out where their next destination could be when sudden light flashed him, only to see Princess Luna herself descending from the sky past him. "What the..." he said to himself, finishing his scouting trip prematurely and flying downwards, landing on Ash's back, listening to what the princess had to say. "Great, this will turn out to be our nightmare as well, then." He said to himself. He perked up at the mention of a dragon. "I know of three dragons, all good guys." he said and chuckled. "Really, they're more friendly than most other ponies that I've met."

Princess Luna shook her dead sadly "no, im afraid not Mr.longbow, so far what i have seen you 4 do, there is no better way curently... but there is a way to inprove opon it a bit, but there is a power here that limits my connection to these dream realms to properly help you out" she said as she turned to the mist.

"this mist is mergeing the real world with the dream realms, i could in theory still manipulate the dream realms to some light degree to augment you 4 magicly to enhance your abilities and to let you use your own minds where the dreams overrule the real world. but i need your permission to do so first, if you also find ponies traped here and free them, it could possibly grant me more access to the affected realms to let me help you out more." she said before turning back to the 4.

"there 2 possible ways you can take from this safe zone you are in curently, you can continue to go through the gate here behind me or you can take the sky route, both ways will lead you to the next safe zones which in turn will lead you to the ponyville safe zone, sadly, that safe zone was made too late by me and my sister when this started, we are hoping there are survivors hiding there, but the mist is making it hard for our sences with how deep those safe zones are compared to this one"

"2 more notes before this projection dissapears, any safe zones one of you 4 you enters will be from now on be blessed by either me or my sister, it will heal you and recover you to full strenght, and every area you enter will have its own quirks on how things works, some may be off desserts, others of marshes, others may have discordian properties, but there have also been power spikes roaming around these zones, there is one close by aswell" she said before her image started to blur out.

"i wish you luck! i will comunicate whenever i can if something happens! open your minds!" the image said before dissapearing with a light flash, cryo and pyro looked att each other before looking att the 2 routes to chose from before cryo asked "so, which way? ground or air?"

"Ground would be best, as only two of us can fly," Ash said. He definitely wanted to fly, as that would avoid possible trouble. He could lift Cryo, but he doubted he could lift Pyro, and Griff in his hawk form wouldn't be able to carry either of them unless he was a lot stronger than he appeared to be. "Anyway, here's hoping one of the element bearers is in a safe zone. I heard one of them is rather hot. A night with her would an excellent add on to my payment."

Giff merely nodded at what the projection of Luna said. "Huh... even though I would prefer to fly myself, I have to agree with Ash. We can't risk splitting the party, so I'll say we pick the ground route as well." the hawk said, preening his wings before hopping off of Ash, transforming back into his cloaked pony form before landing before slightly nudging Ash and chuckling. "Oh come on now, we're in a dire situation where we could potentially die, and you're thinking of the looks of the element bearers? I'll be happy if one of them is still alive at this point."

cryo chuckled aswell att ash's hope and shock his head lightly "so, who is this hot one you speak of the element bearers?" he asked thinking attleast that this sort of talk would atleast ease thier minds a bit given thier situation they are in.

pyro on the other hand decided to go to the short wooden gate that lead to the ground route and opend it, and saw a strange swirling portal on the ground that almost looked like a spiral galaxy and turned to the other and said " you 3 can talk more about mares later, lets go before there wont be any mares left to safe for you 3" he said before he jumped into the portal when the others came close enough.

On the other end of portal was a lush green and thick marsh forest that would block the sun even trough the brightest of days, there was solid ground where the portal let pyro out but there was a also a old wooden peir conected to the little land mass but it looked prety worn down.

beyond the start point was green swampy water so far the eye could see trough out the marsh forest with some giant water lilys close to the pier and the land mass, there was no telling how deep the water was, the mist was prety much absent but there still lingerd some tiny fog clouds near the water's surface. "welp....swamps....great..." pyro said, seemingly not to exited to where the portal lead him and the others.

"I'm not telling you. You'd snatch her up, and I don't share. I'll give you a hint though. It's not the pink one," Ash said.

When he saw Pyro go through the portal, he had to admit that he wasn't expecting portals. "Well, let's not let Pyro have all the fun." He then ran to the portal and jumped in shouting, "Geronimo!"

His excitement vanished a bit when he saw the destination was a swamp. He thought of trying to ascertain their location based on how close they should've been to Froggy Bog Bottom, but then remembered that the mist changed the whole landscape. "Well, looks like I'll be flying a lot," he said.

Griff slightly nudged Ash's sides. "Oh come on now, taking element bearers for myself is the last thing I'd do. Really, I'd be amazed if I even cared more about them other than 'they're alive'." He said and chuckled before watching Pyro go through the portal, followed by Ash. "Yep, let's do thi-.." He began saying as he went through the portal, landing in the swamp. "-iis. Aw buck!" He finished as he saw where they landed. "My god, the stench will take weeks to get out of my fur." Griff groaned before hearing Ash's comment. "Yeah... probably same."

pyro was allready looking around on the patch of ground that conected to the pier, as if searching for something to cross the swampy water as he walked out on the short pier and stared down into the water, he having a funny feeling that something is below the surface.

Cryo jumped trough last into the portal and landed on the small patch of solid ground behind griff and ash, though as he landed, he triped on a big chunk of rock as he fell fowards with a muffled "thump" on the ground as he groaned, and over on pyro's side he began to see alot of bubbles appearing close to the pier "what in the blazes?" he said before he gasped as the source of the bubbles was a boxed cage with unknown content as it floated upp

"hello?! someone out there?! help!" the cage yelled

Ash chuckled at Cryo's unfortunate landing. They may be allies, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to have a little fun at their expense.

When Pyro said, "What in the blazes?" Ash turned his attention to him, and then quickly to the boxed cage that floated up from the swamp water. "Um, yeah, there's ponies out here," he said to whomever was inside. "How the heck have you not drowned?" he then asked. As he did this, he slowly approached the cage while flying. He did not want to get too close to the water until he knew whether or not something dangerous lurked in it.

Griff made sure he knew where he was stepping before he did. He did not trust a single piece of ground in any swamp, too many bad experiences with it. While trying to retain seriousness, he couldn't help but stiffle a chuckle when Cryo tripped before trying to make himself look serious again. When the cage rose up from under the water, he was shocked. "That... is sick." He said to himself, trying to figure out the situation. "It might be a trap. Hell, who knows they've been in there. They could be dead within minutes in a clear water, but this water.. ugh."

pyro crouched on the pier and reached towards the boxed cage and started to pull it upp, but its seen to be attached by a chain on the bottom of it as pyro kept pulling, the cage starting to strain audiably as cryo got upp and went over to pyro to help him pull the cage "what ever you are doing, its working, please set me free from this cage!" the contents of the cage yelled.

After a moment of the tug of war, the bottom side of the cage snaped free from the rest of the cage as both pyro and cryo stumbles back on to land, the cage's content was revealed to be a filly siren floating in the water as she swims to the pier to look att her rescuers "t-thank you sirs, please, i need your help, bad things took my parents and left me here alone in this form as bait for something out here, please i beg you, save my parents! " the filly pleaded to the group, looking like she as been trough much

"Well, I feel like a jerk now," Ash said when he saw it wasn't a trap of some kind. He never had encountered a siren as he rarely traveled over the sea for long periods of time. He preferred flying to his jobs.

He came down in front of the filly and said, "Don't worry, we'll do everything we can to help. We'll free your parents and everypony else who's been taken. For now, stick with us. We don't want you to be bait for whatever those things left you for."

Griff stayed in the back while the other three rescued the... siren filly? He has travelled waters many times but never actually saw one. And to find one in the middle of the land and not deep at the sea.... very unusual. Almost too unusual. He still believed it to be a trap of sort. But for it to be left just like that as a bait by whatever bad things for even worse things? The thought of what else might await them gave him a light shudder. "Egh, whatever, as long as we get to one of those safe areas safely..." he grumbled.

"t-thank you kindly sirs" the siren filly said "i-i can maybe help you traverse on the water, the giant lilipads could work as a platform that i can push to get you to more firm ground" she said as he swam over to a patch of large lilipads that could fit 3 ponies ontop of it, and pushed it over close to the pier for them to board.

As far of pathways to take, the giant tree roots of the marsh prety much made a one way path for the group to take, and said path was just a water way, though looking carefully further down, there was more land masses in the water connected to wooden bridges and piers.

as the filly offerd push them on the lilipad, cryo carefully steped down on the pad carefully, but he felt that it held his normaly heavy wheight without a problem and motioned the rest to get on, pyro soon followed.

Ash decided to simply fly and stay near the group. He didn't like that the filly was still likely in danger as helped to conveniently cross the swamp. However, he wasn't going to stop her if she wanted to help and had the means to. He had to wonder what she was supposed to be bait for.

He soon figured he should have a name to call her, especially if she'd be traveling with them for a while. "So, what's your name? I'm Ash Longbow," he said.

Griff instead sighed and copied Ash's idea. He shapeshifted back into his hawk form and began to lazily glide above the group. He still did not trust the filly at all unless it proved itself trustworthy. They might as well be led into a trap. Whatever reason there may be, Griff was adamant on not getting on the ground for now. Seeing as they were doing their introductions, he slightly shook his head and simply said "Gruff." It was close enough to his actual name, while it wasn't. Griff didn't want to act like the villain of the group, but as a mercenary, his trust was hard earned and not just given away.

the filly noticed the groups uneasines towards her and sighed "i-i know this is all so sudden that i ask for your help and to trust me, my name is scale scribe, im aspiring to be the number one book whriter about information about dragons of our world... me and my parents came to ponyville to have a little family time, they work as explorers and archaeologist and tell me stories about thier journeys and bring me on little field trips...." she says somberly, sniffeling a bit.

"that is untill all of this happend... a scary wall of fog came, we got knocked out and when we woke upp w-we got separated by force by large creatures, t-they wore red loin cloths and pants and looked like your monkey friend here, b-but one of them was the scariest of the whole bunch, i-it was a bit taller than the other, wore differently and had a huge face with 4 bones coming out of its head, i-it transformed me into this form to serve as a lure for the beasts that are in this marsh i think, and they took my parents away from me... they didint speak like we do" she said, tearing upp att the thought of what could have happend her parents as she kept pushing the lilypad to a series of landmasses connected by wooden bridges