Catpone Cerberus

"You really keep... overestimating my capabilities." Jenna stated "Besides, I'll be out of the game...for a while now." "We are fast healers...but there's a limit in everything." she wasn't going to fight anyone when even talking hurt.

"What doesn't the military know?" Jenna pointed out "If anyone would know about those like us, it would be the government, right?" "They have all the FBIs and CIAs and whatever else." "But if they have been watching us...maybe?" "It is not a pleasant thought, but they do have all of our information." "Though even if they didn't know about us before, they do now, since no doubt whatever the source of information for the portals was, also told about those like us."

@Props Valroa The mayor commented that coins in a metal room probably won't burn, but it will take a while to dig it out from the rubble. At this point the weather team had gathered enough clouds, and they moved them above the building, staring the rain, though at the same time, the building collapsed. Una tilted her head a bit at this though, as she could swear she had heard the sound of wood shattering a bit before it, had Flint done something to cause the collapse? The rain put out the fire relatively quickly after this, though they let it rain bit longer to make sure the water went all the way down, nothing interesting happened after this, in fact, the lack of things was the more curious part, as Flint was nowhere to be seen or heard, was she under the rubble? or had she slipped away? Una couldn't feel her anymore, but she no longer trusted that to be an accurate way to tell if she was around or not. Una would follow as gestured.

@Props Valroa "So be it." Noctuna stated "But you have given me lot more than you may think." "You are clearly a narcissist, as your ego makes you believe plainly contradictory things." "Things like your plans being perfect, even though someone managed to get past them." "You also, be it intentionally or not, try to signal your authority through things like body language, which is a sign of insecurity, as those truly in control, don't need to do that." "You also half-threatened me, yet you absolutely refuse to prove your abilities, and not only that, you haven't done anything to stop us from following you, even though it's obvious you dislike it." "So my judgement? Those you call your enemies took away your power in more ways than one, the reason you are so secretive, is because you have no capabilities, you are weak, just like your shadows." "You're egoistical Alicorn, who believes that it's destiny for our kind to rule, who believes that you deserve to rule just for being an Alicorn." "So, only thing you know, is ruling through power, but oh no, you had your power taken away, which implies that your power was also taken from somewhere or something." "Which is why you are so secretive, as you believe that everyone is like you, and thus, believe that if you were to be honest, we would not only turn against you, but actively stop you." "You believe that I am plotting against you, because you would plot against yourself." "You believe trust was the mistake you made, while to me it sounds that your mistake was forgetting that alliance goes both ways." "I'll make this clear so there's no questions, I follow you, because I have nothing better to do, and I will keep following you, until I either find something better to do, or you manage to make me stop. It is fully up to you if I am an ally or an enemy, but be warned, unlike you, I can actually stand behind my threats." As she said the last part, Cinder could swear the night's shadow got darker around them for a moment, even the snake around her neck woke up, wrapping around her tighter as if it was nervous about something. However, there was no change in Noctuna's voice or body language, it was the same confident yet nonchalant demeanor she had had the whole time. In the distance then end of the dead zone started to be visible, turning into a field of colorful flowers, a nice change from the boring and colorless wasteland, though what delighted Noctuna more was the amount of unclaimed shadows, so many shadow creatures without a queen to bow to, be it small ones for now, though due to her connection to darkness, she could also sense something non-shadowy moving among the plants, a lot of something.

@Blitz Boom@Evil Pink One As Light started to fight things, Chega moved behind something bit more solid to avoid it, while Sear took a position to keep her safe, Sheska meanwhile skillfully dodged anything that may have flown in her way while she got the water, this was more what she was used to with her work on the battlefields, dealing with things while avoiding getting hit herself. Sheska ran upstairs again, though this time she would come back down pretty quickly, after two minutes or so. Sear agreed to help, though considering that Shark took care of the whole holding Light in place thing, she was there mostly to add extra weight, and if needed, to hold a specific spot in place, she didn't say anything, or really even emote, holding a determined and serious expression on her face, the same one she had had this whole time, sure it was somewhat emotionally painful situation to watch, but it wasn't in her style to get emotional. -- "The exact requirements are still under work, but to put it bluntly, anyone with nothing to lose are welcome." "Due to the nature of the threats, we'll need those who are capable and willing to sacrifice everything for it, so if one has family, or anything else they could lose, they should look elsewhere." "They also need to be mentally strong, as in worst case scenario, the things they will see is beyond your understanding of horrible." "Outside combat, anyone with knowledge about magical, technological or other such things, that you don't find in any textbooks, that some would call crazy, should also be directed to our way, because when fighting things outside one's normal understanding, you need tools and weapons outside that understanding too." "Truthfully speaking, our main obstacle is equipment, there has been a boost in development thanks to what I myself know, and few other sources, but it will take a while before we have unit worth of required hardware." "Thankfully, while they were unwilling to join, the two dragons you just saw are willing to help, buying us enough time to eventually have a proper way to deal with these things." -- "I am Brother Myrkr, it's nice to meet you." Myrkr responded, as he held his hand above Nerzhei's, a faint glow in his eyes indicating use of magic, though nothing happened yet, as he was just checking the injury "I'm only a beginner in healing, but I believe I can do something." He put his hands together, before pulling them apart slowly above Nerzhei's arm, and as he did this, the swelling would subside, not heal entirely, but get notably better, and same with the pain, the injury would still clearly be there, but the pain would have gotten bit lesser. "Did that help? You should still keep taking care of it as you have, as the damage is still there, but the swelling shouldn't get as bad anymore." While he did all this, if Nerzhei paid attention, she would be able to get a glance inside Myrkr's robe's sleeves, where one would see what could best be described as some kind of skintight metal armor, the only reason why one would be able to tell it wasn't wasn't actually part of him, was the fact that it ended at his wrists, and there you could see it being a separate layer from his scales. On top of that, on the top-side of his arm, there was a thicker, bronze colored piece of armor. -------------------------------------------- Ruby didn't really think much when the route sloped down, nor did she start wondering why it turned and climbed again, mostly because she was starting to think about her own situation, she could hear the priestess keeping up, she also knew that this sudden turn and uphill was bound to slow her down, but most importantly, she realized, that she had the weakness of being alive. She had been running this whole time, and while she had good stamina, that was in her real form, she was currently only barely bigger than her lungs alone normally, and in general this body lacked lot of things that made it possible for her to keep going for hours. She could feel the need to stop and catch her breath, as this form couldn't keep up with how much air she needed, her legs were starting to hurt, as they lacked the usual agility she had, and the hooves had no grip on the hard floor, so every turn and hill slowed her down, she really needed a space where she could ditch the pony form, if she wanted to have any hope to lose her pursuer. And then one of the things she had worried about happened, she was cut off, and they had weapons, which usually wasn't a concern to her, but unlike her real form, the pony form was very much vulnerable to metal, and while infections weren't something she worried about, an injury of any kind would slow her down even more. She didn't want to smash through them directly, as she hadn't tested it yet and didn't know how much it would slow her down if even possible, but she also didn't slow down, meaning that she instead did her best to avoid them, however, she did cut herself on one of the spears, and it just had to hit her back leg, so while it didn't slow her down right away, it did make running just that bit more inconvenient, which showed itself in the next sharp turn, as she stumbled with the turn, and hit the fall sideways before managing to keep going. It didn't stop her, or really even slow her down hugely, but it was quite the painful hit for her already tiring body. When she arrived to the room, she slowed down, she noticed the treasure, and made a mental note of the room, as she had good enough sense of direction to know the route she had taken there, however, looting treasure had left her mind at this point, as the whole thing had become more about survival, She almost just continued on, but a sting from the wound made her look at it, and she realized it was deep enough to bleed, and thus would cause her trouble if she didn't do anything to it. So, thinking quick, she took whatever was the biggest piece of gold she could get, heated it up in the fire, and pressed it against the wound to burn it shut. After that, what she did depended on few things, if any kind of trap had been activated from her doing that, she would react to that to best of her ability, and if the priestess was close enough to catch up to her, she would get ready to try and fight it, if neither of those happened, she would continue running, though she couldn't keep up the same speed much longer. -- Charir was bit annoyed to see that even the weapons repaired themselves, he kept finding himself in situations where he couldn't do anything it seemed, maybe his mother had some truth behind her words after all, he was useless, but unlike was his mother's intention, his conclusion was that he needed to make sure he'd stop being useless, though that was if he actually made it out of this first. When he saw the state of the front door, he was considering to blast it with fire, since that's how Leviathan had gotten rid of it from her claw before, but seeing her reaction, and lack of action, he decided against it assuming she knew something he didn't. What came to the newcomer, Charir still followed Leviathan's example, so he didn't do anything sudden, however, for obvious reasons he didn't exactly trust this thing, and seeing it still had flesh, meant that it could burn. So, as he backed away with Leviathan, he took a defensive pose and started letting smoke out of his nostrils, some of it coming out of his mouth too as he exposed bit of his teeth too.

@Props Valroa The disk did its thing, though the shift wasn't entirely seamless, as the mayor acted in a way that was best described as her losing her line of thought, or something similar to a brain-fart, before the disk took full control, so probably smart to avoid using them on someone mid speech with others around. The mayor explained that the vault used for everyday economy was in the town hall's basement, but other than that, the town didn't have its own vault, as everything bigger went through Canterlot.

@Props Valroa "So, Opaline." Noctuna continued "I couldn't help but notice that when you flew above me, there was a shadow of some kind following you, is that intentional, or just a side effect of your existence?" "And why are you so secretive about your capabilities in general? is it because you're actually weak? You clearly feel annoyed that we don't bow to you, so I'd expect you to at least try to make yourself sound in any way powerful." "No ponies will bow to you if you can't stand behind your words of authority." Opaline wasn't entirely wrong in her feeling, Noctuna was in fact trying to get some kind of reaction out of her, not necessarily an aggressive one, but that too was fine, as she was simply poking her to see what kind of individual she was, if she was worth of her time at all.

@Props Valroa Sombra's response didn't really address the problem, since it wasn't the problem that Flint knew the pony existed, but rather the fact that she seemed to know they had done something to her, which wasn't explained by her having met her before. But well, it wasn't her concern ultimately, since it wasn't her plan. The guard had left the mayor be, as being the only guard around, they had to focus on keeping any unrelated ponies out of the area for safety reasons. The assumed mayor stated that based on the guard's words, the cause for the fire was still unknown, but that based on a eye fitness, the fire had seemed to start from inside.

@Props Valroa Since Opaline didn't interrupt them, the conversation went on. "My turn to be nosy then, what lead you to banishing yourself as you say you did?" "Realism" "Unlike certain creatures, I acknowledged that the world owes me nothing, that there is no destiny or right that will guarantee my future." "Sure I had won the battle, but I would not win the war, even we alicorns are limited to our physical bodies, and my troops were starting to fall, so I fled, but this time I made sure they couldn't come and hunt me down." "What about the whole thing with the princess and queen stuff?" "Princess Noctuna died in an execution, Queen Noctuna escaped it, it's a symbolic change of title, mirroring my embrace of villainy." "You are surprisingly honest about it" "Information is power, secrets are weapons, honesty is a shield." "You cannot use my secrets against me, if I have none." The dead lands were as boring as they were dead, just endless nothing, a husk of existence, there was nothing and nobody, and no sign of there ever being. Noctuna found it curious, though not as curious as the lack of life in the shadows, this wasn't just a case of bad dirt, this place was actively repelling life, both biological and magical.

"The military knew, so they either told them or are part of them." Jenna reminded "But also, probably, we saw what happened to the military, I don't think regular people are up for the task." "But at the same time, they didn't tell us what we should do, or what would happen, only that something would happen, which does rise a questions about their goals."

Jenna shook her head, "Even if I were the highest....priority rogue, which I doubt...they would save the best....to go after the Order." she thought for a moment "Remember that village?" "The so called plane accident?" ... "Maybe that was the first...test?" she looked towards the sky again "a whole village, now a train...Talon has never been this obvious before." "Are they declaring a war?"

@Blitz Boom@Evil Pink One Sear and Chega, who were at one of the tables, stayed back as things went on, and when the spider thing suddenly launched towards them, it was met by Sear's axe, which regardless of looking like a blunt stone axe, was surprisingly sharp, and Sear didn't hold back any strength, as the axe ultimately ended up lodged in the table, from which she easily pulled it off, while Chega gestured the staff to put the damage on her tab. Neither of them approached Light, as while they could see something was happening, and Shark's pleading was hard to listen to, this was far beyond their skills or knowledge, and they were wary of there being more of those things around. At some point during all of it happening, Sheska would make her way down the stairs and stop mid step, scanning the situation with her eyes, before muttering under her breath something. She quickly but calmly walked to grab whatever was the closest, non-glass container, and went to scoop up the remains of whatever Sear had killed on the table into said container. "Nothing that can be done here, get him to the hospital and give them this so that they can figure out what this thing is." it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened, there was Light, clearly going through something, and a dead creature on a table, with Sear and Chega in defensive stance. She had seen chemicals that caused hallucinations, even taken care of kobolds affected by them, so she could see from body language and such that Light was probably going through something, however, with lack of any equipment and medicine, and with her being tired from not only everything that had already happened, but having to deal with her brother going through a mental breakdown, the only thing she could have done realistically, would have been to isolate the bite location by stopping the blood flow, however, with it seemingly having reached the brain already, it was bit too late for that. So when the guard came in, before he, or anyone else could really do or say anything, Sheska pointed at him and shouted "The pony needs to be moved to the hospital, he was bitten by whatever is dead in there..." she gestured at the container "...and as you can probably see yourself, he's not doing good." "And if that metal guard is still outside, he could also make himself useful for once by helping with that." she didn't really leave any space for arguments "I have my hands full already." she would ask any nearby staff for jug of water, but if there was no staff, or if due to the ongoing situation they didn't give her one, she would get one for herself, even if it meant going to the staff-only areas. Probably for the first time, stress was visible on Sheska, both visually and in her voice, and if it wasn't for the fact that she had Trox to worry about, she would have probably just stopped and screamed to get it out. -- "No need to apologize, I've been threatened with worse for less." Solar responded "And honestly, I would have done it to myself if I had failed and survived." "The situation is under control now, I don't know if she has moved on or not, but she won't make it here alive if she hasn't." "What comes to paperwork, you are only required to report up to the point of my arrival, after that point, is my responsibility." "Which reminds me." he took out a paper, an official document explaining who he was, and gave it to Stargazer, before verbally stating the same, be it in less official language "Solar Silver, the commander of an unit that combats threats beyond this world's technological and magical understanding." "And currently the only member." "It is safe to proceed with normal operations." -- The trio wasn't exactly a force for joy, as the dragoness's greeting went unanswered by two of them, the metallic kobold, who looked like she wanted to kill someone, which she probably did, seemingly not even acknowledging her existence, though she did seem to realize something, as while she moved, she touched her body and the metal started to turn orange, until few moments later, the kobold seemingly made of metal, now looked like just a regular kobold, be it with four arms and a blade stuck to her tail. Meanwhile the fully covered dragon, just turned her head slightly to glance at the stranger, and after not seeing a threat, returned her focus on the kobold. However, the male dragon was bit friendlier, as he gestured at the two others "Go ahead, I'll catch up." before smiling at the stranger "Well met, I apologize for my companions, they have had a bad day." "I see you have been injured, could I inquire about the type of injury? I know some healing magic and may be able to help." he spoke in polite manner, in fact, the way he spoke probably reminded some of a priest or other such figure. ------------------------------- Usually Ruby liked being able to say 'I told you so' but in this case, she had really hoped she would have been wrong, but, once again her instincts had been right, she had felt from the start that this would go wrong, and look what had happened. It wasn't that she was scared, nothing scared her, after all, what was the worst that could happen? death? she had never been afraid of death, however, that didn't mean she necessarily liked getting into these situations, just because you aren't afraid of something, doesn't mean you seek it out. From everything that happened around her, the sound of moving stone was the thing she focused on, sure magical symbols and stuff was ominous and all, but after seeing someone rise from the death, it wasn't really that surprising, especially since she had faint idea of undeath, having read a bit about a rumor of one such dragon, and while the writings were quite worthless, the strong magic of such a creature was mentioned. But the sound of stone? you didn't need to be as smart as her to understand what it meant. Luckily the bone-door wasn't any harder to pass as it had been before, so she found herself from the room she had named in her head as the 'skeleton transport room' , though now it was bringing in skeletons instead of sucking them away, with metal weapons, which actually made things bit easier for her, as she now knew their location without needing to see them. So it was a choice time, and she needed to make it fast, not that quick thinking had ever been a weakness for her, it was what had kept her alive all this time. She could stop and fight, the room had just about enough room for her to be in her real form, but it would be very inconvenient, and she'd be stuck there until she would transform back to a pony, which considering the fact that the enemy was already dead, could be never. Then there was the most obvious choice, the exit, however, she could hear skeletons from that direction too, and since she could tell that Charir was still inside, it would also mean she'd be blocking his and Leviathan's way out by bringing those following her there; that of course assuming one of the moving stones didn't block the entrance already. And then there was the mystery route, which would take her away from freedom even more, and could have something lot worse, which normally she wouldn't even consider, but now there was that new weird worry about the other two, and it told her to try and pull the skeletons away from them, and, there was a small thought that maybe there would be a bigger room that allowed her to at least fight properly. There was also the fact that she found it unlikely that the exit would be just open, the temple clearly changed, so why would they leave the most obvious escape route open? And so, after a whole second of thinking about it, she took the mystery route, if this was how she was going to die, so be it, she had expected death to get its due eventually, and what more fitting, than in the hooves of a literal skeleton, after her own mistakes she knew in advance to be mistakes. Not that she was giving up, if she would go down, she would go down smiling and swinging. -- The roar was what activated Charir's fight or flight, he still didn't see the skeletons as a true danger, as they were just that, skeletons, and even with weapons, that to him looked like they were just regular metal weapons, they weren't that threatening, considering regular metal didn't go through his scales. However, seeing them get up after Leviathan's lightning, and from his own potential attacks, as he cut at the legs of any that came too close, he realized that dangerous or not, they would outlast them, since even the greatest stamina didn't last forever, but these skeletons apparently did. Though in more tactical move, if any did come close enough for him to strike at them, he'd cut the weapon instead, just to shorten their reach, certainly the weapons didn't heal too? He didn't much convincing to leave, and would follow Leviathan, he had no need to fight for sake of fighting, and seeing Leviathan's magic's lack of effect was enough proof for him that he couldn't do anything either.

@Props Valroa "I don't think you were the only reason she did this, she was clearly looking for something when in there, and seemed surprised to see us there." Una said thoughtfully "And if she wanted to hurt us, she would have started the fire from the entrance to block the way out." she wasn't defending Flint, she would never do that, she just didn't buy it that this was some great plan from her to try and stop them. "Though I do admit it worries me a bit that she seemingly knew about that apple pony, I have not felt her around, so where could have she gotten that information?" As the weather team came, the guard left the area, eventually coming back with a mare that looked like she had just woken up, but that was also clearly distraught about the building being on fire.

@Props Valroa Noctuna's and Cinder's flight also mirrored their personalities, Noctuna's body language was confident and nonchalant, as she simply walked forward and took flight without any kind of show, while Cinder kinda just fell over the edge of the balcony before opening her wings. "You could also just be a good enough ruler for your populace to not want to overthrow you." Noctuna remarked, granted she had had an advantage that Opaline didn't have, that being the fact, that everyone else were worse, but she still considered herself to be a successful ruler, due to her subjects rising to rebellion when she had been overthrown by the traitors. Since Opaline clearly wasn't a talker, Noctuna changed conversation partners "What about you Cinder? Why don't you like the species that you grew up with?" "My first and only date tried to kill me by throwing me chained up into a cave full of lava. He was the only one who bothered to even pretend to be nice." Flint stated in casual tone "Huh, may I ask how you survived?" "Mutual interests." Noctuna tilted her head "Don't worry about it, what's with the questions?" "I'm nosy." Noctuna had no reason to lie about it, information was powerful, so she tended to pry, be it by directly asking, or spying by asking the shadows what they knew, and she didn't mind being seen as nosy.

@Blitz Boom While nothing needs to be changed, and I'll respond to things when I get to responding (hopefully tomorrow at time of writing), I'll mention few things. Sheez and the dragons, they are meant to be side characters that don't really exist beyond their purpose in plot, so while we can have a little interaction here, there's no reason to try and come up with reasons for things to happen to them, they can, and should be written out eventually, that's partly why you know nothing about them. In other, clearer word, no need to remove anything, we can have an interaction between them and this new dragon, but let's not start a new adventure, the trio just goes their way and disappears. My mention about the outside situation was mainly talking about Solar, and Stargazer, since Solar, while also being a side character, is in more active part relating to the kobolds; and because what happens outside is relevant to the characters inside, in that, I wanted to know if there were still guards around and so on, though the reason for that no longer matters as the interaction with Light has gone beyond a point where it would have worked. It's also good to finish things outside so that you know what Stargazer would know (what Solar would tell him) for the next time he and the kobolds interact This brings me to another thing, Sear and Chega not doing much, it's partly on purpose. They were originally meant only as supporting characters for Sheska and Trox, tools to explore their backstory and their character and as an excuse for the twins to have a place to sleep. They were never meant to get involved with all the stuff, so now that things have calmed down, I'm trying to write them out, back to their original roles, which is closer to an NPC than playable character. And lastly, the first time I have actually something negative to say about something here, but, the whole situation with Light right now, I have no clue what to do here. I understand the reasoning behind it, it has been very me heavy lately due to the Sheez situation, and it's only fair to push the focus to @Evil Pink One, but I have been reading through the posts as they come, and my mind just hits blanks, even with Sheska coming downstairs, which would most likely happen in my next post, I just cannot find a good way to get involved. My one idea was Sheska calling for the guards to come and get Light into the hospital, as she has no equipment, nor time and energy to deal with it right now (nor is she that close to him), but now that a guard has arrived anyway, it doesn't really work. So a thought came to me, should this be time where @Evil Pink One's and my characters' stories branch into their own once again, where we go back to separate 1x1 adventures? And as a general note, when it comes to conflict, firstly, I'm fine with bit of downtime, conversations and such, after all, I like to focus on the character part of the roleplay over the action, but secondly, and the main point of this part, the type of stuff like the poison situation that come out of nowhere just feel bit exhausting for me personally, especially if they happen constantly, they feel forced, rather than something like what's happening with Ruby and company, where the problems feel like a natural consequence, after all, why wouldn't an ancient temple have magical weirdness and mummies, that's only expected Sorry for a downer post like this, but I've been mentally in a weird place lately, where certain things have gotten on my mind way too more than they should, so I figured I should bring some up instead of letting them fester until I burn out. I also felt you should know why my previous post, and likely the next post is so unusually low quality for the kobold part.

@Props Valroa "Assuming the town has a vault, because with the guard seemingly outsourced from the capital, it wouldn't surprise me if the economy goes through there too." Una stated thoughtfully, her guess was that if there was a vault, it would be either in the basement of the now burning town hall, or in the castle. Una held her eyes closed a moment longer than a blink, the heat from the fire was drying her eyes even from this distance, that thing burned hot, she could only imagine what it was like right next to it, or in Flint's case, inside it. The first ponies to deal with the fire started to arrive, as several pegasi started bringing in dark clouds close to the burning building, Una assumed the reason they didn't bring them on top of it yet, was because they wanted to make sure there was enough to combat the heat.

@Props Valroa Noctuna didn't really need a map, because she recognized the shape of the landmass, and while it had been a millennium since she had set a hoof in Equestria, and this was different Equestria, she remembered enough to know the basics, and didn't need more than that. However, since Opaline so kindly copied the map, she did take the original for herself. Neither Cinder or Noctuna had anything to take with that they weren't already carrying, so they were ready to follow Opaline, regardless of how she felt about it, or well, Noctuna was really the one following her specifically, because while a nap would have been nice, she would survive without, and besides that, she really had nothing better to do, while Cinder, who didn't particularly like Opaline at this point, was more interested in Noctuna, as she wanted to know the story behind the injuries, and in general, based on the first impressions, the scarred alicorn was less predictable, while Opaline to her seemed just like a dragon in pony form, the 'I want, I deserve' mindset had become very familiar to her growing among dragons. "While I have no plans to interfere with anything, I am curious, what were you planning to do if I did? I have seen no evidence that I should be worried about your capabilities." "And if I may, what's your obsession with the ponies staying separate? I ruled a nation of mixed ponies, and it never caused any trouble for me." Noctuna's direct, maybe even bit insulting approach was a byproduct of her past, she had been involved in politics for a millennia, trying to keep her peaceful little nation safe while surrounded by a militaristic superpower from all sides, so she had dropped all unnecessary sugarcoating from her words a long time ago.

Luckily the setup itself is such that what is happening can even happen, without me needing to force excuses for why Ruby hasn't transformed yet, if it wasn't for certain facts, the small space alone wouldn't really deter her. I'm excited to see what you come up with, as depending on what/how you exactly do it, it can be a good character moment for Ruby, as there are certain parts of her character that really ever show in very specific circumstances. However, I'd like some clarification for when I eventually respond. What direction is this? the direction she is fleeing from, or the direction she originally came from (aka the way to the exit/entrance) And, what are the weapons made of? are they just regular metal weapons? this isn't super important but it will affect the "flavor text" in that I know if Ruby can sense them and if Charir sees them as a danger or not? edit- it also just hit me, the whole situation outside was kinda just forgotten after Sheska and Trox came inside.

@Props Valroa Una wasn't necessarily surprised that Flint hadn't come out, she did seem to be quite the fan of fire, so it made sense for her to be fireproof, and also explained why the guards in the museum hadn't just stormed her, if she was standing in fire, there wasn't much regular guards could do before the fire was out. She wondered what kind of system the town had for dealing with fire, since most of it was made of wood, but didn't really think any deeper than that. "What kind of questions are you thinking? to avoid being suspicious in case it does not work?" it was mostly curiosity that made her ask that, but she was also wondering what would be the ideal question, since it would need to be something that the mayor wouldn't normally answer, yet something that doesn't seem weird or suspicious.

@Props Valroa "I guess that's a start." Noctuna stated calmly "I apologize for being so pushy, but I had to check if there's any sense under that ego of yours, I don't like working with idiots." she looked at Opaline coldly "They always ruin everything." she then let Opaline look at the map alone for few moments as she spoke to Cinder Instead "You never told your name." "Cinder." "Cinder? how...dragon-like." "Like I said, grew up in the dragonlands." she then moved to look at the map from whatever angle she got, studying it for few seconds, ah, she knew that place, it was Equestria, be it bit...poorly drawn "How about this, I'll take this part..." she pointed at the western 'weird forests' area with her hoof "...and you can have the rest, I'll even chase the unicorns out for you." "Didn't you say you were for peace?" "Princess Noctuna was, I'm Queen Noctuna." "Now I just want peace, I couldn't care less about ponies." Cinder just gestured 'what??', that made no sense.

"Only because you...kept the other one busy." Jenna pointed out "And look at me...I wouldn't be able to...take on a third." she looked thoughtful, but worried "And there has to...be more already." "We are not that...important." "Those couldn't be...the best or the biggest."

"What is magic but anything one doesn't understand?" Jenna replied "I'm not saying you are wrong, because you aren't, but as an answer it's equally vague as me saying it's supernatural." "And it still leaves the question of where whatever caused this came from?" she though for a moment "Which actually brings me back to home, you remember the letter? somebody knew the portals would come, and they knew about us." "Does that mean that they also know what happened here?"

@Blitz Boom Me again reminding about Ruby just in case I don't know what you are planning, which is good, but just to make sure, if you are planning to somehow stop Ruby from transforming (which I'm okay with) now or ever, it needs to be active magic rather than magic nullification, as the way the transformation magic works, is such, that if Ruby's magic is disabled, she will revert to her real form.

@Blitz Boom@Evil Pink One Sheska hadn't yet come back down, and Sear and Chega didn't really follow Shark closely, so the laughter was the first thing that got anyone's attention, that being Chega and Sear, but since they didn't really know what was going on, nor did they have really any time to do anything, they just watched and let the situation progress, though Sear was ready to axe the thing if it came close. (sorry, got nothing this time) ------------------------------------------------------------ Charir was bit confused by Leviathan's stretching moment, not because there was anything weird in stretching per say, but more because of how she decided to do it, one could do it anywhere, yet she had insisted on doing it on the surface she first felt the need to burn and then poke....well, who was he to judge, maybe it was some anatomical thing he didn't have to deal with, and from the sound of it, even if he didn't understand the words, it had felt good, so that was all that mattered, right? He hadn't, nor did he really pay attention to how Leviathan walked, sure he could tell her build was different, matching that of bipedal creatures, but so what? he was build to fly, yet most of his kind preferred running, though they were also build for that, but that was beside the point. He followed Leviathan. Leviathan didn't need to worry about stopping Charir from going to the room of Dark magic, because while he didn't know he was looking at dark magic, or even what dark magic was, the lack of things to sense was a good enough warning, as his most basic instincts knew that whatever this was, was not natural, and that in turn meant, that you shouldn't go any closer. It was also his survival instincts in general that kept him back, because while he was a predator, he was also prey, prey to bigger dragons, so he had enough prey instinct to avoid places where he couldn't sense the danger, and the room in front of them was clearly a place like that. Leviathan's reaction of course also made the decision to not get closer even stronger, as he trusted her judgement on things that were bad. As Ruby watched the special skeleton...excrete..smog that acted as it did, she rather quickly concluded what it was, it was some kind of dark magic, she didn't know if it was Equestrian dark magic, or maybe some deer variant of dark magic, or even undead magic of some kind, but it was clear that it was magic that went under the category of dark, and not just because it was black in color; no not-dark magic would be used when animating dead, as however you put it, and as little as she believed in concept of good and evil, bringing back the dead was impure by it's nature, not that it had anything to do with nature, as it was one of the most unnatural things out there. Ah, so now the pictures made sense, this mummified deer was clearly one of the big antlered ones from the pictures, and the shadow? probably something to do with this whole dark magic business, though that was as much as she could figure out, not that she tried that hard, as the details didn't really matter to her. The mummification itself didn't really mean anything to her, she didn't know much about different cultures, so she didn't even think to think about a reasoning for it, to her it only meant that this deer was buried differently than the others, like it clearly had been, and thus hadn't rotted in the same way. It didn't really cross her mind to wonder if it had been a purposeful mummification, or a natural one, and even if it had, she would have seen the whole concept as a matter of cultural nonsense with no real meaning. After all, even the concept of ceremonial burial to her was absurd, the only reason she saw to ever bury something, was to get the body out of the way and stop it from attracting things, so making a big deal out of it was just pointless. When the deer spoke, Ruby knew it was her time to bounce, so she took off without much thinking the fact that her hoof steps probably echoed, since the deer clearly wasn't bound by the rules of basic senses. However, one thing did escape her mind at the moment, her box, she had strapped it back on after getting past the bone-door, meaning that the same problem was in front of her, so there was really only two options on what she could do, assuming she'd find herself from where she expected to end up, either she had to stop to take the box off, which would take precious time, or she would need to just go through and hope that it either doesn't get stuck, or her speed was enough and the bones were weak enough to break if it did get stuck. One fact that didn't escape her mind however, was the inconvenient spot she was in, it was a hallway with only two directions, and it was too small for her to effectively transform to her real form, and one direction was pretty much blocked, that being the one she was fleeing from, thus, she could really only hope that the skeletons were as stupid as they seemed, or at least slow enough for her to get out of the hallway.

@Props Valroa Flint wasn't fazed by the response other than being surprised by how not angry Sombra was, after all, she liked to describe in detail how fire burned things, someone liking murder wasn't that shocking to her. "You really are no fun!" "Running again like a shadow from fire...hey, that actually works.. come back and join me, it's warm in here!" since Sombra decided to be boring and just leave, Flint didn't bother with the slow way, and instead spread the fire herself to the rest of the space, after which, she laid down on the floor and let the flames engulf her. The guards...or well, the guard, arriving would take some time for the simple reason of the fire not breaking outside in a good while, since while the building was wood, it was build with some fire standards, and the room was deeper inside, and even then, it would probably be more local citizens than guards, since sending guards from Canterlot for a fire was impractical at best. Una followed Sombra, not wanting anything to do with Flint, and when they stopped, she suggested something "This could be our chance to find the mayor, this is the town hall after all, no doubt they would want to see it after hearing it's burning?" "There also could exist another record somewhere, because I find it hard to believe that they would store the only copies in a wooden room." especially since this town seemed to be attacked constantly, they probably had copies in some better secured place.