Frain Breeze

"Oh, good. Thank you sir." Lanceguard smiled and set her bag by Dodger. She hadn't seen anything really suspicious from the colt. Besides, they were in a bright, open field. What could go wrong? Lanceguard rolled her eyes at Fate, but maintained a smirk. "No, swords are definitely out of the question. We're trying to knock each other down, not cut each other up. As for the horn... Well, I usually have some helmets fitted with fake horns that others may use. But since it's just myself here instead of a group of my jousting friends, I have to admit I'm somewhat under-prepared." She paused for a moment to rummage through the contents of her saddlebag, incidentally in view of Dodger. Other than the first aid kit she kept with her, all of the contents were just things for herself- money, snacks, a few notes, and a couple patches of chainmail in case hers was damaged. Turning her attention back to Fate, she continued, "The horn isn't strictly a necessity, though. It adds a little more hurt to your hits, but other than that it just adds leverage in a few advanced moves that.. don't usually go well for beginners."

"I've never seen anything like this..." Lanceguard said to the others as she stepped forward. She slowed as she saw something on the floor ahead of her, some kind of gap. The edges were straight, so it must have been some intentional feature of the room. She approached it cautiously and reached a hoof down, finding it to be wide, but only a few inches deep. "Hm. I think this is some sort of aqueduct right here. Long dried up by now, though. When we're done looking around this room, we should try finding out where this leads. The water had to have come from and gone to somewhere, so we're bound to find a way out if we follow it." That being said, Lanceguard continued further into the room. It was still dark on this side, but she could start to see what the other skeletons were. The bones didn't come from any one kind of pony... or any one kind of creature, for that matter. Everything on this side of the room was a mashup. The skeletons were made from parts of all kinds of animals, and in the middle of them stood a larger, serpentine set of bones with no limb matching another. On closer inspection, even the stone blocks that made up this side of the room didn't match. "Fire Walker? I don't think this is from the time of Nightmare Moon. This has to be something about the time of Discord. Maybe that aqueduct is supposed to represent some kind of border."

"...Impressive..." Lanceguard spoke to herself, approaching and slowly circling the armored pegasus statue. "I would love to see such a pegasus in the arena. What about you-" Lanceguard blinked. The other two ponies had gone on to the next room while she was busy admiring the statue. She quickly left the room to join them. "What pony?" She peeked into the unicorn chamber, then grimaced and tilted her head away slightly. She turned her head, giving the room a quick scan. "I suppose that book might be of some value, but I would rather not place myself face-to-face with... that. It's less a matter of fear and more a matter of.. not staring at ancient rot." She shuddered, glancing again at the mummy. Lanceguard stepped away from the unicorn room and now opened the door to the remaining chamber, the one marked for earth ponies. Like the previous rooms, it too was decorated with various statues and bones. But unlike the other chambers, this one went further, with an fairly large archway located on the far wall. "Strange, this one goes through.. Shall we see where it leads?" Lanceguard asked the others as she walked toward the far door. On either side of the doorway was an earth pony skeleton, propped up around a framework and dressed in heavy armor. Having no manes or soft tissue to support them, the skeletons' helmets hung low on the heads, the brims positioned at about nose level. Lanceguard's pace slowed as she approached the next room, soon coming to a stop. "This.... this is new." Though the room ahead was dimly lit, she could still make out the nearer shapes inside. On the near side of the chamber were more posed skeletons, one representing each pony species. In the center of them stood the crude representation of an alicorn. Bones from several ponies were tied together to match the approximate size of an alicorn's limbs. Wings were wired up to its sides, and while the skull did have a horn, it appeared to be a separate piece, perhaps grafted onto an earth pony skull so as to represent all three. The far end of the second room was not yet visible, but it contained a far stranger mix of bones. Many of them were not even from any kind of pony species...

What kind of RP are you looking for, and with what character?

With a look to Steel Dagger, Lanceguard spoke, "I think it would be safest for us to stay together. As for which door, I suppose we could just take a peek inside each before committing to a direction." She stepped toward the door on the right, marked as the pegasus room, and looked it up and down. It was a solidly constructed wooden door with several iron reinforcements along its surface and at its edges. "Was" being the keyword here. In its current state, the wood was badly deteriorated, and the metal reinforcements could probably use some reinforcements themselves. "Well, Fire Walker, I don't think you have to worry about these doors locking behind us. I think even opening these would be too much for them to withstand." She placed her hoof on the door, demonstrating a light push. And that's all it took. As Lanceguard put her hoof back down and turned to talk to the other ponies, the door slowly creaked open, leaving the latch still in place in the doorway while the rest was free to swing. Lanceguard looked at the now open door. "...Case in point." Her statement was punctuated by the sound of the ancient door falling off its hinges. "I suppose we should be thankful the rest of this place is made of stone."

Just looking to get some more characters in this thread: Mirror Mirrors of the Hall The nearly identical Rappatat and Semolina Flour have just met each other, and are now looking to play tricks on some other carnival-goers. Do we have anypony here who should end up "seeing double"?

(OOC: Huh. I somehow overlooked that bit earlier when Dagger teleported down.) Despite her careful start, Lanceguard slipped and dropped ungracefully to the floor with a thud. "OOF. I... do believe I just took a rib to the ribs. I should be fine though." Lanceguard brought herself to her hooves, brushing herself off before approaching the others. She stood by Fire Walker's side, gazing down the hall. "I see... something down this hall." She took a step forward for a better look, only to feel her hoof start to move down. "NOT AG-" The subtle grinding of an ancient mechanism was heard as several torches along the hall suddenly went alight. "-ain." Lanceguard quietly took a few paces back, glancing back and forth between the now-lit hallway and the floor switch she accidentally triggered. She gave a heavy sigh, shaking her head, "I'm already beginning to miss the times when putting my hoof down didn't invoke big surprises." Looking down the hall now, Lanceguard could see three doorways at its end. Above each doorway was a skull with two torches on either side of it, their flames tinted to odd colors by some sort of additive. The first door's torches were purple, and the horned skull obviously that of a unicorn. The second had green flames and plain skull, and the third door had sky-blue torches and a set of wing bones on either side of the skull. "I suppose this explains what happened to the heads," Lanceguard said bluntly, looking only toward the doorways ahead of her.

Lanceguard smirked at Dagger's comment and replied jokingly, "You're here to keep us safe... from starving and eating each other? So, what, does that mean you'd want to be the first one eaten?" The pegasus spoke up again, this time about some fictional adventure stories. Lanceguard looked down toward Fire Walker as she spoke, then glanced up at Steel Dagger, whispering, "I'm beginning to wonder if negative elevation affects' a pegasus' mind..." She shook her head and crouched at the edge of the opening, starting to carefully lower herself down. "Let's go, it sounds like we have a good bit of discovery to make down here."

Rappatat put her hoof to her chin as she thought. They could have fun with some of the food vendors, maybe show up twice in line and such, but that could only go so far. She wrote out a reply to Semolina. She held up her note, a slight smirk on her face. "Are there any rides that make ponies dizzy? Maybe they could end up seeing double..." (OOC: Sorry for the delay. I don't have a set direction on this RP at the moment. I think I'm going to mark this thread "Open" unless you have any issue with it)

"Well of course it's a sport. It probably wouldn't be wise to advertise it if I was simply going around roughing ponies up" Lanceguard replied to Dodger. She looked to Fate, resisting the urge to chuckle at the filly's boast. Lanceguard looked around, taking a moment to survey the area. It was a wide open space, big enough to have some fun without any interference. "Well, since we have a good spot, I might as well go over how to joust. The goal is simply to knock your opponent down such that their sides or back hit the ground. The joust is a physical competition, which means no magic. In its earlier forms, the joust was limited to just unicorns versus other unicorns, but we've had to expand it just to get more ponies in the game. But to keep it in the old spirit, pegasi aren't allowed to fly during a match and any non-unicorns are usually wearing false horns on their helmets. After the initial charge, it's up to the ponies in the arena as to how it goes." She took a few paces further into the park before stopping to add, "Oh, and of course: Any horn, whether real or fake, must either be dulled or have a rounded cover placed over the end. I would hope the reasoning for that is obvious."

"Your magic certainly suits the job, but I like having a backup in case we get split up." Lanceguard left the others for a moment, going to the old and dried up tree that fell in with the collapse. Only a small part of it fell into the water, so it would still be usable for a fire. She felt around the decaying branches until she found some suitably weak ones, breaking them away with a hard kick. "Torches... check." She tossed the loose branches aside for a moment, then touched her horn to the trunk. Focusing, she cast a spell she normally used for welding damaged pieces of her chainmail back together, using its heat to ignite the wood. With the fire started and a few loose branches tucked under her caparison's straps, Lanceguard returned to the other ponies. The pegasus was babbling on about some old scare-story. "Miss?" she spoke, peering down to Fire Walker's location. "Please, relax. Those cannibal pony stories are nothing but a myth. I've read quite a lot on history, and I haven't encountered a single documented case. We'll be out of here soon enough, and it will be easier without our minds clouded by paranoia."

Lanceguard tilted her head slightly, thinking to herself "Did she just take that comment about my horn literally?" She shrugged it off as the two other ponies began investigating the odd stone slab. "I'm not so sure diamond dogs would burrow this close to Canterlot. I remember reading about an ancient pony settlement that was covered by a landslide, but I can't quite recall if this would be the right area for tha-" her words we cut off as the pegasus stumbled into the pit, landing with a hard thud followed by the clattering of old bones. She peered over the edge, tense until she heard the mare say she was okay. "We really should be more careful, miss. As much as I want to go exploring, we should at least leave some sign we were down here in case somepony from above comes looking for us." Lanceguard stepped away from the opening and looked around at the cave. "There's an old tree over there that fell in with the sinkhole. I'll see if my link-welding spell is enough to start a signal fire with it." Lanceguard looked toward the dark opening where Fire Walker fell in. "...and perhaps I can bring back a few branches to use as torches."

Lanceguard's expression lit up as Dagger started going on about his magical prowess, only to quickly change to an eyeroll once he concluded his spells wouldn't be of any help. "Back to square one then." Her ears perked up and she turned toward Fire Walker, responding to the pegasus' comment about her horn "I probably would have considered it if I didn't get two new ones after breaking the one on my head." She turned and stuck out her hip, showing the crossed-horns cutie mark design on the flank of her caparison. "As for anypony knowing we're here, I know I told a few of my jousting partners we would be looking for a new spot, so they at least know we're in this general area. But like I said, we should work on finding a real way out of here." Lanceguard took a few steps away from the others and looked around. The dust was starting to settle, and the walls of the cave were beginning to come into view. For the most part, the cave was just what anypony would expect from the underground- jagged rocks, irregular mounds of dirt, and the occasional body of water. But something caught her eye. Amidst the natural features of the pit was a flat stone platform protruding from the wall near the cave's bottom. Perhaps it was the roof or floor of some ancient structure lost to time? She was shocked, and began approaching for a closer look. "Guys? I do believe I've found something..." (OOC: I don't have a specific direction in mind here, so don't be afraid to add your own elements to the ruins. The only thing I really have "set in stone" right now is that the ruins are an old city or castle that was covered by a landslide ages ago)

Rappatat set down her notepad and went to write more, but lost hold of her pencil. She turned for a moment to retrieve it, then resumed writing. She held up her note, not realizing she was now facing a directly at a mirror instead of Semolina. Rappatat looked confused for a moment, trying to decipher the gibberish on the "other pony"'s notepad before noticing her mistake. She blushed and did a quick facehoof, then turned to face Semolina with her note. "What should we do first?"

Lanceguard nearly froze as she saw the princess awaiting her. Though she was expecting some hostility for her business with Blueblood, the setup gave no such indication. There was even a tea set at the table! This meeting looked like it was going to be a lot more pleasant than she had first thought. This only eased her nerves slightly though, as it was still her first time meeting a princess in person, of course. She bowed her head at Celestia's presence, rising again as she spoke. "It is an honor to meet you, my princess. Tea would be lovely, thank you. Oh, and apologies if my appearance is less than ideal, princess, as I had little time to prepare." Lanceguard gingerly seated herself. She was doing her best to hide any signs of nervousness, though her eyes occasionally darted around the room. "What did you wish to discuss with me, your highness?" Lanceguard asked, wanting the princess to lead the conversation. She didn't want to risk saying anything that could get her in trouble if it wasn't necessary.

"Oh, thank goodness.." Lanceguard gave a sigh of relief as soon as she heard both of the others. She approached, giving a worried glance to Fire's wing. At least the pegasus seemed competent at first aid, as her next comment kind of hurt. "Oof... I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but while my family has a lot of skilled magic users, I wouldn't exactly count myself as one of them," Lanceguard spoke, removing her face mask and horn guard. She lifted the false tip off of her horn and tilted her head down, showing that about of quarter of her horn was missing from an old injury. Lanceguard turned toward Steel Dagger. "Unless you know some impressive magic, we need to find a physical means of escape. Let's start checking the walls, perhaps there's a spot we could climb or a tunnel that leads to a cliff face outside. If all else fails, we could rework my chainmail into a long chain and use that to get out, but I'm sure we can find a real exit before it comes to that. I'm certainly not looking to spend all week down here, and I'm sure neither are you."

Lanceguard ran as hard as she could, changing her direction toward the nearest tree in hopes that its root system would keep the ground there stable. The ground beneath her gave way before her theory could be tested, dropping her underground just like Steel Dagger. With little other choice, Lanceguard straightened her body upright, landing rear hooves first in the water. The impact was enormous, and she felt her hooves momentarily touch bottom before her momentum ceased. The water was thick with mud and soil, and with her heavy caparison, it seemed as if the entire world was trying to hold her down. Lanceguard swam as hard as she could for the surface, right on the verge of drowning by the time she reached it. She gasped for air and began instinctively paddling forward, her hooves occasionally finding a rock or chunk of earth to push off from. The unicorn soon found the water's muddy shore, pulling her front half out of the water. Lanceguard lay there, exhausted and panting. After a moment to collect herself, she brought herself back to her hooves and called out- "This is Lanceguard! Can anypony hear me? Who is hurt?" The back of her mind wanted to add "is anypony dead?", but she refused to entertain that thought. She rapidly turned her head in each direction, desperately looking for any of the ponies from her group. The cave-in was over by now, and sunlight from above could shine into the pit. However, the thick dust in the air would keep visibility rather limited until it settled.

Rappatat read Semolina's note, then nodded with a big grin. She wrote another, holding it up for her to see. "I thought it was some kind of magic trick when you moved differently than I did. I guess instead of a trick I found a new friend? I've never even met another mute pony." With a silent giggle, Rappatat added to her message and showed it again. "Maybe we could try fooling with other ponies here at the carnival."

"Cute? I appreciate the compliment, sir, but I do believe your attention should be on my horn rather than on my fa- AHH!" Lanceguard stumbled as her front hoof suddenly plunged deep into the ground, all the way up to her shoulder. Bewildered, she slowly pulled her leg up and put her hoof back on the grass, then peered into the hole. She could only see down a foot or so, and after that was pitch black. The sound of running water could faintly be heard from below, but what she heard next disturbed her. It was a splash. More specifically, a delay and then a splash. That must have been the dirt she pushed through. How far down did this thing go? Lanceguard stared quietly at the abyss for a moment, then stood upright and looked nervously to the other ponies. She cleared her throat and spoke "Everypony, we need to get out of here." She kept her voice as calm as possible. Who knew what a bunch of panicking ponies could do to an already unstable area like this? The unicorn began a slow, careful walk back toward the group, but her ears soon perked up as she heard a noise from behind her. Lanceguard turned her head to see the area around that small hole was now collapsing. The very place she had been standing a moment ago was now a rapidly expanding crater, its center falling deep into the ground. "RUN!" she yelled, galloping toward the group. So much for not panicking.

Rappatat was amazed. She knew mute ponies were rare, so the chance of finding one so similar to herself must have been truly preposterous. She thought she had seen everything from her post at the lighthouse, but now she was beginning to doubt that. She shook her head in response to the mare's note, then composed another message. She held up her new note for the other pony to see. "No, I was born this way. I usually use horse code to talk, so everypony calls me Rappatat." She waited a moment for the other pony to read to the end of her message, then began tapping her hoof on the floor to spell out "Hello" in horse code to demonstrate.

Here's one that I liked brainstorming. However, I don't think I would do well RPing a blind character, and this backstory seems a little too grimdark for me. A recently blinded (former) silversmith pony. This pony's condition is unusual in that her eyes are actually fine, but her eyelids are the problem. An accident splashed molten silver on her face, but a quick-thinking unicorn friend managed to cool and remove most of it before her eyes could be damaged. Problem is, the scar tissue from the accident has left her eyelids permanently sealed. She now searches for a doctor skilled enough to remove the scars without damaging her eyes. She has a few stray pieces of silver remaining near her eyes which tend to resemble tears, but she is actually confident and fairly cheerful despite her condition. Note that since her eyes are still functional behind her eyelids, she is still able to detect bright lights. Also, the scar tissue is primarily around her eyes- The rest of her face should still look about normal.

Sounds good to me. Though I may want to wait a little before starting this one, just to see how the other threads I started today are doing.

Rappatat helped the mare to her hooves. This time their actions did mirror each other - Rappatat looked over her counterpart, taking note of her cutie mark. This pony obviously had to be some kind of baker, judging by the bread cutie mark. What this pony did next shocked her, however. Instead of talking, the other pony brought up a paper stating what she wanted to say, obviously written well in advance. It was a trick she herself commonly used when she was dealing with ponies that didn't know horse code. This had her really curious now, so she took out her own notepad and quickly scribbled a message of her own. She held the note up to the other pony. "Can you speak?"

Okay, the RP is up for Lanceguard, Dagger, and Fire Walker: