A Dark Journey

[Dubstep]

Throughout the town of Ponyville, a series of posters has been plastered across lampposts, buildings, signs, carts, benches, and even the odd pony or two that was too slow to avoid it. The well penned posters had looping, dark red filigree designs along the edges to catch and draw the eye to the equally expertly written message held within:

Count your blessings, Ponyville! An absolutely golden opportunity awaits you! I am searching for a few lucky fools peons minions assistants to have the honour of joining me, the one and only, Dark Core! Master of Evil! — and his second-in-command Colonel Croaky — on a once-in-a-lifetime journey far to the north, deep within the Badlands! [A drawing of the general area around the Sea of Ruin is drawn next to the paragraph]

There is bound to be numerous dangers and threats along the way, none that I need worry about of course, but not all of you are quite so lucky. Thus I suggest bringing plenty of supplies for any such occasions. Your reward, of course, is being graced by my presence as well as getting to have the honour of helping carry back any treasure that I find save for the singular relic that I am after. Which is on a need to know basis. You don't need to know. Should you have the fortitude and intelligence to wish to join me, meet at the northwestern exit of Ponyville the morning of [the date has been repeatedly replaced four times]! Failure will, of course, not be tolerated.

- Dark Core, Master of Evil

Beneath each of these posters, a second, smaller poster has also been attached with similar hoofmanship:

Fine! Any assistance will be rewarded with a share of any treasure found during the journey, not including the relic I'm after! Which again! Is need to know! And you don't need to know. So if the honour of working for me isn't enough for you greedy goody-two-hooves there's potential treasure on the line now! Yeesh.

- Dark Core, Master of Evil

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Out on the outskirts of Ponyville, Dark paced to and fro impatiently. The colt had been trying for days now to get some labour willing to make this highly important trek. It wasn't like he was asking much! A few folks willing to make a trek to the north, bring their own supplies, and carry things back for no pay wasn't that big of a deal. But after some troubleshooting with Colonel Croaky he came to the conclusion that at least SOME kind of enticement might work, it's hard to say no to treasure, even for goody-two-hooves. Surely someone would follow, he even put some posters up at that blasted school and it was full of sparklebrains that would help out someone blindly! He hoped anyway. Otherwise this would be a long journey...

[NiktoBarada]

Tongue Twister was trotting back to her wagon after visiting the Post Office to see if she had any mail.  There were a few job offers that she'll sort through later.

 

She stopped short.  There were posters on her wagon !  It had only been a few minutes, and somepony had plastered advertisements on her wagon !

 

She sighed.  "I hope it's not another 'Buy One for the Price of Two !!' sale on widgets ..." she groused to herself as she took down the posters to read them more closely.

 

She quirked an eyebrow upward as she read the notices.  "A self proclaimed 'Master of Evil' plans to set off into the Badlands to look for an unspecified relic ?

 

With a departure date changed four times.  On a notice written by hoof.  And only later decided to 'grant' some sort of incentive to actually go ?

 

That's - a disaster just waiting to happen !  Throwing together a quest like that will usually end in failure; heck, even quests with weeks of prep can end in failure.

 

Most likely, we'd have to send a search and rescue party after him.

 

And 'unspecified relics' can be troublesome.  Nine out of ten magical disasters happen when some unfortunate goober finds Something That Should Not Be Found.

 

Hmmm - we could potentially save Equestria from a disaster by going along to keep an eye on things.

 

Well, at least we can write that on the Expense and Reimbursement forms for STAR ... 💲"

 

With that, she put her mail inside a drawer in the wagon and adjusted her heavily enchanted gear : the blue and silver Second Chance cloak to hide her altered wings, her saddlebags, and the four necklaces she'd taken a habit to wearing.  Three of them look normal - the 1st place medallion for winning the Running of the Leaves, a small Klein bottle full of a smoky blue liquid, and a good luck scarab necklace she bought while on a 'mission' in Saddle Arabia.  

 

The fourth necklace, on the other hoof, was by no means normal.  It was a small, roughly cubical thing that looked like somepony was carving something they'd never seen before, without watching what they were doing.  It was a Fair Play charm from Tenochtitlan.

 

She put on the harness and pulled her wagon to the northwest exit of Ponyville.

 

"Let the madness commence !"

[SteelEagle]

Muziki was never bored in Ponyville. It was so different from everywhere else she had lived. It was not the hustle and the bustle of the big city, nor the scenic panorama of the nomadic Savannah of her birth nation. It was the middle ground, and she knew for a fact that every day it seemed like she understood it more and more. The very act of learning ponies both in their small day to day ways and in the larger mythos that informed them was worth every bit of her love and attention. It was harder to translate it into unique Unyasan bard ballads sometimes, but worth the effort in any case.

 

But she had to admit that she was mostly just being a passive creature in Ponyville. She read, she listened, she took part in classes but she didn't get to experience the same history as they had lived. So no, she wasn't bored, not at all, but that adventurous spirit that burned within her was not being well tended. So it was when she started seeing all these flyers plastered around town promising adventure and danger and treasure and all those things that she was assured waited at the very heart of a good adventure.

 

And so it was she approached Dark Core, trotting happily. She had a large saddlebag well-stuffed and stocked, and her green and blue bardic hat on just so with a recently acquired pegasi feather sticking out of it (she loved to tease that silly colt). She found the Dark Core and his little colonel croaky as well as a well-looking mare with a cart. What a good group! She bounded up to the Dark Core, whom she had seen once in a blue moon, a little note sticking out. "He-" she started, then remembered to spit the note out, "-pssbbs, okay, there going now. Okay, hello there! I am Muziki, and umm, I have heard that you are going on big danger adventure and treasure hunting?" She beamed happily before reaching back down to pick the note up. "I asked ma and pa if it okay and they said yes and give note. Umm, maybe they not know badland! No matter! This is permission slip. May I be in adventure now?"