Tempest Rime

Mal grinned as Lyra and Trixie began to complete their part of the plan. Wasting no time, she began to summon up a series of small green flames, focusing as much power into them as she could, in as small a space as she could. To magical senses, her viridian flames hissed and glowed even brighter, becoming nearly blinding as she put more and more power in. She advanced towards the river, a malicious grin on her face. Overflowing with confidence, she funneled even more into the wisps than she had earlier in testing. Her horn began to ache from the effort, and she grit her teeth in determination. The hissing deepened into a humming as the concentrated magical energy throbbed, though to non-magical senses it appeared little different than before. A thought occurred to her. That little foal was like she had been, years ago. The clockwork were the manticore. If there was one thing that was certain, it was that she would not let that happen again. The thought filled her with furious determination, and the flame responded in kind, doubling in intensity once, twice, three times. Finally, the rocks came crashing down. With a cathartic scream, she flung the infernal motes over the river, spreading them out to cover the whole width of the waterway before they exploded. This time the sound was audible without enhanced magical perception, a series of thunderous booms that shook the earth. Not long behind them, a shockwave that knocked Mal clear off her hooves, sending her rolling all the way back towards the others. Behind that, a painfully chill breeze followed closely, freezing the water that had splashed onto them instantly, and turning the mist left in the air into icy flakes. As Mal shakily stood up once more, she smiled. Not only had the river in the area around the rocks been frozen, much of the water further away had been physically blasted away. As such, the ice in the area around the rocks had conformed perfectly to the shock distribution of the blast, a series of smooth, round semi-spheres overlapping each other and the rock barricade, sealing off any chance of water continuing to run through the now-empty river bed. "Suck it, river!" Mal shouted, the rush of victory filling in for her expended magical energy. She grinned manically at Lyra. "I'd say that was definitely okay, greenhorn. Hoof bump." She raised her hoof for a bump, but promptly became unbalanced and fell completely over back onto her side. She groaned, put a hoof her her aching horn, and managed to push herself up into a sitting position. "Guh, that's gonna smart in the morning."

Is it Gabbo?

"Doing what?" Asked Pinkie, her eyes snapping open. "Oh, did I move? Hmm, maybe it's just thinking about where I want to go. 'Cuz I was thinking of floating in the sky, so I floated towards it. Maybe..." She closed her eyes again and in a flash she zipped away home, leaving Dark Core suddenly and unceremoniously alone in the forest. (Exit)

Pinkie finished up her cooking and stepped out with a desert cart, laden with the strange desert omelettes. "Okie dokie loki, these, uh... things are ready." She paused as something occurred to her. "Hey, Mr. Cake is back, that means..." She glanced up at the clock. "My shift is over! And I'm almost late! Oh no, I am late! I'm late, I'm late!" Without further ado, she dashed out the door. A few moments later, she popped her head in just to add "for a very important date!" before disappearing again, leaving Mr. Cake to deal with the customers, satisfied or otherwise. (Exit)

"I know," said Pinkie, launching into an energetic ramble at maximum speed. "That's why I'm in here! They were all talking about cookie omelets, so I said I bet I could make those, and then one of them ordered some, so now I'm trying a new experimental recipe, I sweetened the eggs and now I'm making them up into omelets, but with cookie stuff instead of veggies, but then I thought I would have to be careful to keep like chocolate chips from just melting into the eggs and making the whole thing chocolate, so I made sure to add the things closer to the end of the recipe, but not so early that it had hardened, which was kinda hard, but I think I got them mixed in pretty well, and there's cookie crumbles and cinnamon and even though it's not really cookie stuff I thought whipped cream would be great on top, so I pulled that out to put on top, but then I was like hey, if I'm gonna put whipped cream on, then there's gotta be a cherry on top, but then when I got back from getting out the cherries my first omelet had started to burn a little so I had to toss that one, but this next one I'm working on is gonna be fantastic, I guarantee it, oh and yes I think those folks came in together maybe, I dunno, but they are from out of town definitely, well except Apple Bloom, of course, 'cause if they were from here I'd know it, oh, but they didn't come in all together now that I think of it because that brown pony came in looking for me specifically, well not really specifically, but she wanted to find someone who could teach her to throw awesome parties, and everypony knows my parties are the best parties, so I decided to teach her, though first I kinda yelled at her a little because of a misunderstanding, but that got cleared up pretty fast, and then Apple Bloom came in looking for help with Granny Smith's party, so I'm having Sweet manage that with my help so she can learn how to throw parties, though I'd never really thought of it like a teacher before, so I'm not really sure if it's the best way to teach, but I heard that experience is the best teacher, so I thought it would probably be a good way to teach, so she's been working with Apple Bloom, and..." She finally paused, taking a massive gasp of air. She opened her mouth, but then looked confused. "Um... where was I? Oh well." She added a few ingredients to her work in progress.

"Uh, no sir ma'am, you don't have to. I can work with him. As long as he doesn't try to do anything bad. But yeah, Gilda's got a good point. What if the treasure map is a fake? Or if it's not, but the city itself ends up being a myth, and it's actually just made of brass or something. Yeuch." She made a disgusted face. "If that happened, you'd be getting your reward, but we'd be going hungry. That's not very fair." Shard paused, considering. "Oh, and the guy himself, he's got a band of its, right? How many bandits, and how tough are they? I don't think I could handle more than thirty or so if they're really strong. Maybe more like fifty if they're weaker. Any more than that and it gets real annoying when they dog-pile me."

And nothing of value was lost.

"Hmm..." PInkies hooves flailed ineffectually at the air in an exaggerated walking motion. "Nope, not working. Oh, maybe if I blow real hard I'll go in the other direction." She turned around without thinking about it, simply rotating around without any leverage. She then began to take deep breaths and blow as hard as she could, an act which resulted in nothing happening whatsoever, save that after a few minutes of it, she began to turn purple. She huffed and gasped for a moment, "This... isn't... working... either." She paused, trying to catch her breath. "I think... I'm gonna lay down for a bit... ok?" She flipped over in mid-air. "Mm, floating is awful comfy. No wonder pegasuses like to sleep in clouds." She closed her eyes and began to float upwards very very slowly.

Mal stomped her hoof. "I'll prote-er... hurt anyone who messes with him. Me, I mean. Guh, whatever. I know I can do it, and I'm as charged as I can be." She looked away, somewhat embarrassed to be in the position of playing hero. She glared at Lyra. "We're gonna redirect the river so the lay-lines don't align with the ruins, thus cutting the automatons off from their power source, was that not clear from when the Doctor said it? You drop rocks into the river. I freeze the water so it can't carry 'em away, and BAM, the the river shifts and everypony can go home." She paused. "Or go looking for more ruins, I'm hoping to find something useful one of these days." She gave the Doctor a sideways glance. She really wanted to go exploring with him, but she was too self-conscious to ask. She was sure he would find something, unlike she, who's explorations more often than not ended up not even finding a ruin at all, let alone anything useful from said ruin.

Oh I'm not as close as that video, I'm well outside of town, still a good distance away, and I am keeping an eye on the evacuation notices. It's more likely that we'll be taking people in if Fort Collins get evacuated than that we'll have to evacuate ourselves. As a very small upside, at least with all the smoke, my bees were super docile when I opened up their hive this morning.

So there's a big wildfire burning not far from me, making me nervous, so that's about all I can think about right now. There's a lot of smoke out. A friend of mine climbed up on his roof and made this yesterday. And the fire's estimated area has more than doubled since then. Some nifty pictures.

Pinkie nodded at Sweet's suggestion for applesauce cake. "Sister, if you can think it up, Pinkie Pie can make it. Uh, with Mr. and Mrs. Cake's help, at least. That's more Applejack's speciality though, and since it's her granny, she'd probably be a better bet for it." She looked to Apple Bloom. "Have you talked to her 'bout the party any? I bet she'd want to make the cake herself, doesn't she usually?" Pinkie stepped back. "Oops, I'm getting too into it, sorry Sweet, it's your project. I just happen to know a lot about the ponies in question 'cause they're my friends. It's your project, I'm just here to help." She smiled and continued to watch as Sweet made progress. She clearly knew a decent amount about planning, or at least was able to figure it out quick. Pinkie smiled and nodded sagely as Sweet questioned Apple Bloom. She glanced over at Muffin and winked at him as she noticed him looking at the inventory, an irrepressible smile on her face. But then, Timid ordered the confections they'd been talking about. "Ooh! You're on! Though I can't guarantee they'll turn out perfect the first time, this is gonna be highly experimental." She snapped a pair of goggles over her eyes, giving a manic grin to the ponies. "I'll be back in a jiffy," she said, before bolting into the kitchen.

Shard's eyes lit up and she wasted no time in emptying the proffered purse and wolfing down its contents with great gusto. "Mmph, so um, oops," Attempting to speak with her mouth full sent a small spray of molten gold onto the table, where it caught fire briefly until she bent down to lick it up. "Mm, sorry 'bout that. But anyway, I was gonna ask how you wanted to split the treasure we do get to keep. You said we got 40% from the buffalo, so are we splitting the rest evenly? 'Cause 10% of a famous lost city is still huuuge, I dunno how we'd even get that out of there." She frowned. "Oh, and if we have to bring back the rest of the city for them, we'd need a whole big expedition. I don't think I could carry more than like, a small building, and even that would be pretty tough if it's made of gold." Her questions asked, she turned her attention to the pony. Gilda had brought up a good point. "So, how fast can you travel? I mean, if you can't fly you're already going to be slower than us. Would you you be cool with being carried? You don't look too heavy." She paused, a thoughtful look on her face for a moment. "A retriever, huh? I thought only diamond dogs were those. The way you describe it sounds kinda like a thief." She frowned at him. "Stealing is bad."

I... but... what? Ponies do exist. On Earth. They just can't talk or use magic.

"Awww," Pinkie looked disappointed as Rainbow flew off. "But it's not the same just wearing a disguise by myself." She scowled. "And I had just the idea for the perfect disguise, too." She sighed and quickly bounced back into her usual peppy mood. "Oh well, I'll file that idea away for the next time we need disguises. Twilight, you're not allergic to nightshade are you?" "But you're right of course, we can sing later, when we're not in a crowd. Ooh, or we could sing now but just sing about something else completely so nopony knows what we're actually doing! That's brilliant, Spike! Do you two know the one about the walrus and the seanicorn?" Without waiting for confirmation, she began to belt out the bawdy ballad, trotting ahead of Twilight and Spike far enough that nopony would ever possibly suspect they were on the same mission. She picked up a few random backup singers as she meandered, most of whom seemed a bit intoxicated, but it was nowhere near as big a hit as that smile song had been.

Mal meditated in silence, ignoring the petty flirtations of the other unicorns. After focusing for a long time, she felt something. Energy. Confidence, perhaps. Power. She opened her eyes and focused it in the air in front of her. As effortlessly as a levitation spell, a wisp of her green flame appeared in front of her. She grinned and intensified it, focusing more flame into a smaller point, throwing more and more energy into it with ease. Then the doctor started shouting, and Mal's glanced up to see what he was complaining about now. She didn't get a chance to figure out what the fuss was about, as her concentration slipped and the speck of flame she'd been focusing on exploded. There was a boom, a rush of air that blew her back towards the others, and a loud shattering noise. When she struggled to her feet, she saw the shattered remains of the tree that had been nearest her flame. It had flash-frozen and shattered, shards of frozen bark were scattered in a cone radiating away from where the flame blast had impacted it. Mal's mouth dropped for a moment. "That... that was perfect," she said softly. She turned back to the others. "I can do it," she said confidently. "I can DO it! That river is gonna regret the day it changed it's course!" She frowned. "Uh, well, I mean, it would if a river could regret things."

Pinkie snatched up the potions and looked at them. "Pink should be first, 'cause it's my favorite." She poured the pink vial onto the horrid cupcakes and stepped back to watch. The cupcakes trembled for a moment before beginning to suck in on themselves, slowly imploding downwards. As they neared the ground there was a POP and where the baked bads had been, there was now a neat array of flowers. "Oooh, cool!" Pinkie clapped her hooves together happily at the transformation, dropping the second vial in the process. It fell from her mouth right onto a hoof, where it broke and spattered her with elixer. "Oopsie," she said, as she began to turn slightly transparent, the potion's effect spreading from where she'd touched it to cover her entire body. "Woah... I'm see-through. And I'm floating," she suddenly realized, flailing her hooves in the air as she floated a foot up off the ground. "Oh my gosh! Ghost potion! I bet I can walk through walls now too! Well, float through them at least." She flailed her hooves again. "Um... how do I float forward?" One of the cupcake flowers made a small burping noise and emitted a puff of angry smoke in response. The smoke pointed at her and stuck out a spectral tongue in mockery.

You can backtrack actually, even if you didn't miss the quests. Just click "Change Quest" right under "Resume Game" and you can set your progress back to any point in the game.

Everypony seemed to be getting along well, no more tears or anger. Pinkie regarded the room, beaming with satisfaction. Another unhappy situation had been completely overcome by the power of laughter. "Okie dokie loki, well if anypony needs anything else, let me know," she said to the room at large before moving back to hover behind Sweet, listening in on her conversation with Apple Bloom. She mused at Sweet's comments on candy coloration. "Hmm, we don't really have that problem with cakes. Frosting can be pretty much any color you can imagine, and even the cake part itself isn't too hard to manupulate." At Apple Bloom's mention of activities that didn't involve too much moving around, she nodded sagely. She of course had plenty of ideas, but this was Sweet's opportunity, she'd wait and see what the candy mare came up with.

I'm totally making a Witch Doctor and naming her Zecora

Mal groaned. Here they were at a fancy party, and he actually wanted to introduce her to some farmer or something. "You can't dance? Seriously? How do you ever expect to not get killed in a fight if you can't even do something as simple as dancing? It's all coordination and agility, with a bit of reacting to your partner. If you can pull of crazy tricks in the air, you can do this." She yanked on him with her magic and pulled him towards the band. They still seemed to be warming up, so she pulled Zephyr up to her. "Ok, I'll show you a few things while the band is still playing boring stuff, ok? Are you even paying atte-" She was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a minotaur shredding some harsh riffs. She stopped what she was doing and stared as he played. When he stopped, she reared up and waved her forelegs in the air, cheering. "Yeeaaaaah! That's what I'm talking about, come on band, you just gonna let him show you up like that? Come on, kick it up a notch!"

"Not hiring?" Shard looked crestfallen for a moment, until she realized that Miasma was still paying. "But there is money and glory, right? That's enough for me." She picked up a glass and opened her mouth wide, tossing the whole thing in. She chewed on the glass for a bit, trying to avoid making a particularly disgusted face, but it was hard to disguise how little she cared for the brittle and tasteless material, even hungry as she was. "Um, so you will take me then?" She frowned. "And wouldn't the debriefing come after the normal briefing?" She suddenly gave a tiny, flaming burp as the alcohol hit her draconic digestive system and was instantly burned off. "Oop, 'scuse me." She grinned at Gilda, giving a friendly wave. "Gilda... like gilded? Mmm..." Her thoughts quickly turned to food again. "Gold is tasty. I can't believe so many creatures use it for money. It's so impractical, I'm always eating it before I can spend it." She was shaken from her thoughts by the arrival of, of all things, an earth pony. Was this frail little creature supposed to actually help them? Then again, Shard had heard of unicorn magic, maybe there was something useful earth ponies could do. About half of what he said went over her head, but she replied anyway. "Oh, I'm not miserable. I'm just a little hungry." She eyed his mug, the steel in it looked a lot better than the glass.

After finding yet another invitation to fancy party, Mal had jumped on the opportunity to drag her coltfriend along. Her slinky black dress had been untouched since the actual Grand Galloping Gala, but it didn't seem any worse-off from the neglect. They arrived a little late, but Mal was unconcerned. She could really care less what these ponies actually thought of her, she was only here for the free food and dancing. Mostly the dancing, though she hadn't actually mentioned that part to Zephyr yet. "Come on Zephie, don't tell me you're afraid of ballrooms, too." She grinned back at him and trotted up to the room, waving her ticket dismissively through the air, though there didn't seem to be anyone there to care. Disappointing, really. It wasn't everyday that she got invited to this sort of fancy party, so she would have loved to rub it in to somepony. Oh well, there was still time to make a scene. She walked up to the refreshment table and poured herself and Zephyr Burst drinks, ignoring the chattering ponies. Dealing with snobby upper-class ponies would be much easier with something to quench her thirst, though she avoided anything that might be alcoholic. The music was something slow and lifeless, nothing she wanted to dance to yet, but that was ok. Dancing wasn't something she could just jump into anyway. She had to psych up for it. She trotted back to her partner and gave him a critical frown. "So Zephyr... do you happen to know how to dance?"

Other than grooooooooossssssssssssssss? In other news, Rarity and AJ are totes straight, and I do not support any lesbian ships involving them. Except maybe something casual with Pinkie, just to experiment a little. Or maybe just to get her to stop talking for a few seconds on a long tram ride home...