Unexpected Recruit (PM for permission to join)

[Loopy Legend]

Unexpected Recruit

Ramble Route and 2 other ponies were on a 3 pony team, as they were heading out to the Ever Free Forest. They were with a herbalist who had hired them to find some rare herbs, that were supposed to be in the southern part of the forest. This particular plant was hard to find and supposedly only grows in certain caves in the forest. Normally this plant grows right near the entrance of the cave, so this mission is not really that dangerous, well at least not for Ramble. The other 2 ponies with Ramble are a specialist in flora and fauna named Clover Leaf, and a new filly recruit hoping to get into the Venture League called Vim.

Ramble was checking the map of the Ever Free Forest, going over it with a fine tooth comb. “Hmm I think this would be a good idea, here Seed might be a good place to start”, Ramble stated as he show the map to his client Seed Shore.

Seed Shore looked at the map and thought to himself for a second, while stroking his chin with his hoof. “Maybe here Ramble, I heard rumours that the plants I’m after might be near this river system”.

While Ramble and Seed studied the map, Clover and Vim packed all the equipment, and packed up from lunch. As the crew had just finished lunch, and were about ready to move out into the Ever Free Forest. All 4 ponies with saddle packs full, and in full view of the Ever Free Forest, set off into the unknown in order to find those plants.

[Chrystallix]

It was into this stirring scene of grand adventure just about to start off that Finder walked into. Well technically he walked around it. The unicorn had come calling to Ponyville, as he did occasionally, along with everywhere else. However, no sooner had he got his wagon set up and dumped the mountain of things that wouldn't fit inside of it on the ground then his horn started acting up. He'd groaned and sighed, trying to ignore his glowing horn and the mystical trail of glowing...dust or whatever it was. However, in the end both his curiosity and the fact that he couldn't stand to let something lost stay lost caused him to stop what he was doing and follow the trail. Up and around the houses of Ponyville he followed it, weaving up and down in wavering paths.

At times he even moved in a complete circle, at one point walking in the circle twenty freaking times before the trail continued on its way! Eventually it led him up and out of Ponyville, moving towards the Everfree Forest. Eventually he moved up behind them, and strangely he moved right around them, arcing out in a tight curve. This was actually where the trail led, for some reason whatever object he was following had been carried through that odd arc, passing right around them, rather than just going straight through what had surely been empty space. "Pardon me." He said cordially as he moved around them, moving back around front of them and continuing to follow the magical trail. It was perhaps the oddest thing that could happen without being completely absurd.

[Loopy Legend]

Ramble and his crew were enjoying the breeze and they were about to enter the Ever Free Forest. When some weird pony that looked like he was looking for something bumped into the crew and forced his way past them.

“Um excuse me, what’s with this intrusion mate”, Ramble said as the weird pony who could concentrate on nothing but what he was looking for passed him by bumping into him in the process.

[Chrystallix]

"Hmm, what?" Finder asked as somepony asked him a question. He turned, looking at the group he was moving through and his face reddened beneath his green coat, "Oh sorry." He said apologetically, rubbing the back of his head with a hoof. "Its just when I'm on the trail I get kind of caught up in the magic." Speaking of magic, his horn was still glowing, and by now the group itself might even be able to see the "trail" the strange ribbon of green light floating lazily in the air.

Hopefully apologizing to them wouldn't take too long. He did want to find this object after all.

[Loopy Legend]

The sky started to become a little gloomy, as our crew how now stopped just shy of the Ever Free Forest to inspect this weird unicorn that had bumped into them.

"You are one weird pony, err...., say I didn't get your name um?" Ramble stated as he was digging for more information.

As Ramble was mentioning this glimmers of light leading like a zig zag line slowly started to appear down the road. Clover came up to Ramble (As Clover was a Unicorn), "Excuse me Ramble but those line".

"Ya I know Clover, I ain't seen glow lines like this in ages", Ramble said to see such unicorn magic.

Ramble turns to the mystery unicorn, "Say what exactly are you looking for, with this locator spell of yours"?

[Chrystallix]

"Oh, the name's Finder, Finder the Finder." He said, laughing weakly at his own lame joke. Really it was used more for advertisements then because he thought it was actually funny. Uh...these pony folk were looking at him funny, well they actually seemed to be looking at his trail. Wait...the pony, who he assumed was the leader since he did most of the talking, had seen these glow lines before? Finder had thought he was the only unicorn who knew this spell, but could he be wrong? Or had he met this pony somewhere before?

"Well...I have no idea what I'm looking for actually." He said, in response to the question. "The spell just makes the trail of an object's aura visible so that I can follow it to the object in question. I won't actually know what it is until I reach it. Of course, if I know what I'm looking for before I actually start looking for it I'll be able to identify its individual aura, but only if I actually know it needs found. Random auras like this..." He suddenly shrugged, "could be anything."

[Loopy Legend]

Rambled look quite intrigued at this new unicorn, his ability to find things seemed like it was his special talent. Plus the fact his horn seemed to flare up without him saying so, meant his natural ability to find things was through the roof. With proper training this talent could prove to be a great ability, plus the fact he could find just about anything made the possibilities seem limitless.

“Hmm your one interesting unicorn ain’t you Finder”, Ramble stated with great interest.

“I’m Ramble Route, leader and founder of the Venture League, the biggest and best league of explorers and adventurers in all of Equestria”. Ramble said as he could not help but look at the glowing trail.

“But I must say, I have seen t racking magic before in my travels, but nothing like what I see here”.

Ramble and even the other ponies in the group were more then a little fascinated now with Finder and his amazing natural ability. It seemed that this could play to the parties advantage, as what an amazing coincidence that party were looking for specialized plants for their client.

“Say if you’re not to busy, why not lend us a hoof. We could use the help to track down some plants tor our client here”, Ramble stated pointing at the client.

[Chrystallix]

"Interesting?" Finder repeated, puzzled by Ramble's statement. He was interesting? Funny, he'd never considered himself that interesting, just a pony making his way through life. Then the leader of this little party mentioned the Venture League and the unicorn's eyes widened in recognition. The Venture League? Sure he'd heard of them! Admittedly he knew very little about them besides they adventured, explored, escorted, and all kinds of other things, but he did know about them.

"Eh, plants?" He said, now looking a bit worried, "I'm not sure how much use I'd be for finding plants, they don't tend to move around much and thus don't leave trails." He thought about it for a moment, then his eyes brightened, "Wait! Do you happen to have a sample of the plant on you? If you do I could light up its aura and follow that trail back to where it was harvested from!" As much as Finder liked finding, he liked helping ponies even more, well as long as helping the ponies find something that is. In his mind, finding something he knew about was more important than finding some random object, and rightly so!

[Loopy Legend]

“A plant sample you say, that’s a pretty smart idea”, Ramble said turning to the herbalist.

“Well you heard the pony, got a sample of the plant you’re after in that saddle pack of yours”, Ramble stated pointing to the herbalist’s saddle pack.

The herbalist rummaged through her saddle pack for a bit, and after a minute of fiddling around she pulled out a sample of the flower. “This is the rare Highbis flower, and I use it in many a brew I whip up for other ponies, so I need as much of these as you can find”.

She gave the flower to Finder to take a look at, “The only problem is, this particular flower was from the other side of the forest, not this side we are on now, so you can’t follow this exact flower, you will need to find a new bushel of them”.

While the herbalist was talking to Finder, Ramble turned to Vim for a second. “Make sure you pay close attention young one, it is always good to know everything you can about members of your party, or items of importance on whatever mission you are on. Don’t take anything for granted, you never know when some of this info might end up saving your life my young filly”.

[Chrystallix]

The unicorn waited patiently as the group sought out their sample of plant. It didn't take very long, within a few seconds the, client had the strange plant out. The green aura of Finder's magic surrounded the flower, delicately lifting it into the air for him to look at. Hmm, well if it was such a rare flower than its aura shouldn't be that weak, but if this was harvested on the other side, then there was no way he'd find this particular plants trail. However...it wasn't a specific plant that had the aura, but the entire group of flowers, so the aura of one er...Highbis flower shouldn't be that different from another, if there even was a difference.

Still that left the problem of plants just not moving around. "Hmm, is there any kind of animal that eats these plants? Or would have any reason to carry around part of it, like a petal, or pollen or some such?"

[Loopy Legend]

Seed Shore thought for a second, “That’s right the plant is normally a favoured food of snap lizards” (Ok had to make some weird animal up, think a lizard with a croc mouth).

“I’m sure if you track some of them down, you might find the plants”, Seed said with some excitement, feeling she could get some of these plants.

“Well Finder would you like to help us, since you’re here, as you can see we could use the help”, Ramble said offering Finder a chance to join the mission.

Ramble thought to himself that this weird Finder pony, could be an excellent addition to the Venture League, his natural knack for finding things will come in very handy.

[Chrystallix]

"Hmm, they're obviously small so..." Finder put his head down close to the ground, his horn glowing as he started looking for trails. Unfortunately it wouldn't be very strong since these snap lizards probably weren't that smart. A few, barely visible, thin trails appeared and seemingly at random he started to follow one. "What? Oh yes, I'd love to help, be glad too." He said, not looking up from the trail he was following. It wasn't that he was being intentionally rude, it was just that he kind of...zoned out while on the trail.

[Loopy Legend]

A smile came on Ramble’s face as Finder agreed to help out with the mission of finding the plants needed by Seed the herbalist. “Ok then Finder your in the lead, so lead on we will follow your lead mate”, Ramble said with all due excitement.

The team saddled up and got ready to move out into the Ever Free Forest, with Finder leading the way in, and hopefully to the plants they seek. With a full day to explore and loads of supplies to keep the team going for days, this should be a walk in the park, or at least Ramble thought so.

[Chrystallix]

Finder just nodded, deep in concentration as he followed the fragile trail before him. It was actually several minutes before the group would even be headed towards the Forest, the trail meandered about the landscape for a bit before eventually turning into the forest. Finder followed it the whole way, not wanting to risk losing the trail in an attempt to get ahead of it. After a few long minutes the trees of the Everfree Forest would begin to loom over them as Finder led them inside.

[Loopy Legend]

Ripping up a trail in the Ever Free Forest, our now crew of five with the addition of Finder. As they followed Finder in zigs and zags through the forest. Loads of weird sounds could be heard, and heaps of creepy eye, could be seen off in the distance.

The crew ere closing in on a river with a cave across from it, only problem was a big wide river that was overflowing from recent heavy rain, plus the roaring torrent didn’t help. This looked like a problem for our crew.

[Chrystallix]

The eerie atmosphere of the Everfree Forest seemed to do little to affect Finder, for one all important reason. He was on the trail and nothing, not fire, water, or any manner of monsters would stop him. Of course, it also helped that he probably didn't even notice anything besides the trail. However, when they reached the river, that was something he couldn't just ignore. "Oh dear." He said, looking at the raging river. He tapped his chin, thinking it over. "Hmm, did any of you happen to bring anything that could deal with this situation?"

[Loopy Legend]

Ramble walked down to the river to access the situation of crossing the river, the water was really raging and the gap to cross was wide. To wide to attempt a jump across, even with a running start that would be impossible even for a pony of Ramble’s stature. But Ramble thought for a second to himself, as he stared at the young filly Vim.

Hiding his rope in his saddle bag, “Say Vim why don’t you figure us a way across this situation”, Ramble said pointing his hoof to the raging river.

“Also it appears I forgot to pack my rope, looks like we might need to get a little creative here”, Ramble stated as he sat back and waited for what Vim might do.

Vim looked around for a bit as she couldn’t tell what to do, the little filly seemed to be falling under the pressure Ramble just put on the young filly. She trotted around for about 5 minutes or so while, everyone else took a load off. But all was not soon to be so calm, as noises in the trees said something unwanted was heading there way.

Loud noises now drew closer as the unknown maker of the noise showed himself to the ponies, as the roaring ravaging savage tooth tigers came racing out of the trees. These creatures hunt in packs and normally show no mercy to any they encounter, which in our current case was our crew here. “Oi Vim you better hurry it up and get us over this river, on account of we will be busy keeping them busy”, Ramble said as he pulled out his whip to hold back the Savage tooth tigers.

Still quite scared seeing Ramble and the others hold off the tigers, Vim put here fear aside and let her instincts take over, as she had to save every pony or it would be the end of them. Looking around she spotted a sharp rock on the ground, and sprung a brilliant idea. Using her horn she picked up the sharp rock, and began to spin it like a saw blade, and took to some near by trees along the river side. Sawing right into the bottoms of the trunks, making several trees come crashing into the river. She Whistled Ramble and the others to make a run across, “Ok lads you heard the filly, make like a pony and over those trees, now move”, Ramble said as he held off the other tigers.

[Chrystallix]

Finder watched quietly as the two ponies talked, was this perhaps a trial run of sorts for this Vim? Hmm, it didn't really matter to him so long as they got across. Then the loud noises started, and the unicorn just knew that couldn't be good. He turned towards the noise, a nervous expression on his face. Then the tigers jumped out, and he couldn't say he was that surprised, such beasts were always hanging around these places.

As he moved forward to help Ramble hold them off he almost expected himself to go berserk, but the thing was they weren't in his path. The path was over the river, the river was in the way, these beasts weren't. So instead he used a levitation spell to hoist up rocks and throw them at the creatures. When the make-shift bridge was finished he began slowly backing up, still pelting rocks at the creatures as he backed his way across.

[Loopy Legend]

All 3 ponies were on the other side of the river, giving Ramble enough room to get rid of the savage tooth tigers. Wrapping his whip around one hoof, and standing on only another hoof, Ramble braised himself. “Oi once I’m over make sure you blast that bridge into kingdom come, we be cutting this one taught guys”, Ramble said giving the tigers an angry look.

Ramble began to spin on his one hoof, kicking up a huge dust like tornado. Dust covered the whole side of the river Ramble and the tigers were on. The others couldn’t make out much but the sounds coming through were crystal clear. As Ramble used his whip while spinning to whack the tigers one for, as the tigers growled in pain and angry. During the commotion one of the tigers came flying out of the dust cloud and slammed back first into a tree, knocking it clean out. “Ok guys do it now”, Ramble yelled as a whip came out of the dust cloud and grasped a tree on the other side of the river.

As Ramble came swinging over the river, just like Tarzan pony of the jungle would. “Oi stop looking at me and blow the bridge now, or we going to have some guests join us for lunch”, Ramble said pointing at the logs in the water the ponies used to cross the river.

[Chrystallix]

Once he'd safely crossed Finder watched Ramble's performance with interest. That was one talented pony, although the unicorn wasn't quite sure if it was more or less effective than his going berserk. Sure it definitely took care of the smaller creatures like that, but it seemed even less useful against the truly large creatures than going berserk was. However, his train of thought was interrupted by Ramble starting to just swing across the river. Well, these were some guests that Finder had no interest in entertaining. So he quickly moved forward, turned around, and kicked the logs with his hind legs. He was hardly the strongest of ponies, but years of hauling around a wagon filled to bursting with random assorted objects, which were often quite heavy, and even hauling a small mountain of junk on his back because the wagon was already full, had made him a good contender as far as strength was concerned. So for him it was easy to kick the logs and force them perpendicular to their original position, where the river would quickly take them downstream.

[Loopy Legend]

Ramble landed on the ground and folded up his whip, putting it back in his side saddle. “Great job every pony, thanks to some rather quick thinking and help from Finder, we pulled through on this one”.

Ramble walked over to Vim, “Well, well my little filly, you sure did step up in a big way today, quick thinking with that inventive saw blade of yours”, Ramble said as he rubbed Vim on the head.

“Ok Finder now where were we, O ya you were finding those plants”, Ramble said with such a casual appeal as if nothing at all had just happened.

[Chrystallix]

He wasn't quite sure if kicking the bridge counted as quick thinking, but oh well. Finder didn't really bother refuting the praise or accepting it, his horn was already glowing as he started circling outwards, looking for the trail. Every now and then he'd stop for a few seconds as he found one, but moved on after realizing that it was not the trail he sought. After a minute or so he let out an, "Aha!" His circling stopped as he instead started going back into the forest, again on the trail. "Come on everypony, I found the trail."

[Loopy Legend]

((OOC – Sorry been few days but I have been busy but now here is a oart for you))

((OOC also you can take the reins a bit and help guide the storyline you do know that? Lol))

Ramble and the rest of the crew with him, continued to follow Finder as he slivered through the Ever Free Forest. After their ordeal at the river it put every pony on high alert, again reminding them just how much of a dangerous place the Ever Free Forest is. The forest was getting thicker as the team entered the southern end of the forest, and Ramble pulled out his map to try and pinpoint their location. “I must admit, I’m normally quite good at this job”, Ramble said scratching his head while looking at his map.

“I admit I normally can pinpoint locations, even in the Ever Free Forest, but Finder you’re taking us into an unknown area of the forest”.

“So Finder lead the way, it’s all up to you and your great ability to track items down, or in your case find them”, Ramble said giggling a bit.

[Chrystallix]

Once again the unicorn was so preoccupied in the trail that he barely even heard Ramble. This tendency to "zone out" had gotten him in trouble before, but usually nothing serious, although that was more a matter of luck than anything else. As he was walking the trail eventually led to a small cave with a small number of plants clustered near the entrance. However, while the trail did go up to the plants it also veered off deeper into the forest, and so engrossed was he in the trail that Finder might pass right by them without even noticing!

[Loopy Legend]

Ramble grabbed Finder by the tale, bring him to a halt in a sudden stop, as it looked like nothing short of a bit of force would stop him. “Hey ease up mate, you missed a spot”, Ramble said with a chuckle pointing a hoof at the flowers Finder walked right past.

“These are the plants we are looking for, mind holding up just a sec while we collect them please”, Ramble said with Finder’s tale still in his mouth.

Ramble dropped Finder’s tale, “By the way, reckon you could find some more, as we could use loads more of this flower for our client”, Ramble said looking really impressed with Finder’s natural talent.

Ramble thought to himself how Finder could make a great addition to the Venture League, and once this mission was over, what course of action would be best to try and score Finder for the Venture League.