Silly Druid

@Kujamih You go to commander Steel Hooves to tell him about your ideas. However, he assures you that the city has already been searched thoroughly, and only one such symbol was found. @Princess Skylight "Not quite, ma'am, I wasn't standing here all the time, I just happened to be here yesterday morning when that pony drew the symbol..." The old stallion explains. @Oni Musha No matter how you look at the symbol, it's still the same thing: a crescent moon inside a horseshoe.

I'm not sure if it's the spirit animal you're talking about, but we are friends with the Peryton that guards the depths of the Everfree Forest. We do gather some kinds of mushrooms, and use them for our healing potions.

This sounds really cool and pretty similar to my ability! Well, in my case the plants react with singing a song that only I can hear, so it's not that spectacular, but sometimes I can acquire important information from them.

As far as I know, I'm the only druid in Equestria, and I'm not accepting any more apprentices, sorry about that. But if we meet, I can give you some tips how to develop your abilities.

@Oni Musha "How should I know, Raven didn't say anything about decoding or multiple symbols..." Shadow Dagger answers. Intellect (d4), result: 1. Critical Failure. You don't find any hidden doors or passageways. You even have trouble finding the normal door to the barn. @Kujamih Intellect (d3), result: 3 / Pony Sense (d5), result: 4. Best result: 4. Success! You don't find anything suspicious in the stalls. It doesn't seem like the conspirators planted anything there in advance. @abrony-mouse "I've seen the one who made the symbol, young lady, if you can spare a few more bits I'll tell you everything I know..." The beggar suggests.

My abilities started to manifest when I was a filly, before moving to Manehattan. I liked to walk through the forest and sing softly to myself. At some point, I realized that the trees sing back to me! That was so unexpected and unusual! That's when I got my cutie mark. At first I didn't understand what they were trying to tell me, but later I started to learn their language. As I said earlier, I encountered Forest Storm much later, after finishing school and moving back to my home village. Your abilities sound interesting, tell me more about it!

Unicorn magic is an external force that the pony can conjure and focus with the horn. Druid magic, on the other hoof, is the ability to channel the existing forces of nature. You need to have a natural talent to do something like this, and it occurs more often with earth ponies because of their strong bond with the nature. In many cases these abilities are untrained, so these ponies can do something unusual, but without fully realizing their potential.

It's pretty hard work as there's a lot of stuff to learn, but it also very satisfying, I can see my abilities improve almost every day. Also it gets quite lonely sometimes, we can travel for many days without meeting anypony. So when we visit a settlement, I tend to mingle with the locals a lot to compensate this. I grew up in a little village at the edge of the forest. I liked that place a lot, because of my love of nature. But my parents had to move to Manehattan to find a job, and I was too young to live on my own so I had to move with them. I didn't like living in the big city, so right after finishing the school I moved back to the village. But I wasn't really sure what to do, so I had a similar situation as my teacher: I wandered through the forest, searching for a purpose in life, until I met him. History repeats itself, I guess.

As I said before, it's mostly about gathering information. We take note of anything that we find out and could be useful in the future. Most of the time it's about animals and plants, since we travel through the forests, but we also visit the cities sometimes, so we do have some knowledge how the civilization works. Also we will help anypony in need. From the herbs we find we make potions that can cure various illnesses, and we sell most of these potions, but we also carry some of them with us to be used in case of emergency. We do not demand payment for helping the poor ones.

After a few hours of lifting heavy chunks of building materials with his magic, Dusty was pretty exhausted. "A lunch break? I'd love that!" He said and started preparing to go and eat the meal with the others, but then he saw the map Plum found, which really intrigued him. "Opaline... Opaline... I think I've seen that name somewhere..." He wondered what he could make of it, but unfortunately he couldn't remember any details regarding that name. He looked at the map curiously, checking if there were any other interesting locations on it.

Well, my youth was pretty "stormy", I'd say. I wasn't as calm as collected as now, I was pretty impulsive and adventurous, to put it lightly. At some point I joined a group of bandits who were robbing ponies traveling through the forest, and I helped them by using my lightning summoning ability. One time, we attacked a carriage that we thought contained a treasure, but instead it turned out to be some innocent foals, and I almost killed them with my lightning... At that point, I understood what I was doing was wrong. I left the bandits, and started to walk aimlessly through the forests, unsure what to do with my life. That's when I met my teacher, who made me who I am now. The Druid Brotherhood was founded in the pre-Celestial era by ponies studying the forces of nature and the means to control them. After that, the new druids were always trained by existing ones, like I do now with Tree Song. Our role is mostly to gather information. For countless years we traveled the forests of Equestria in search for any sings that something was out of the ordinary. Which usually means someone is using magic to do something bad, and we should prevent it. Using magic always leaves traces. Most ponies wouldn't notice them, but a trained druid can detect them. There were many instances during Princess Celestia's reign when my predecessors and I warned her about a villain who was going to attack, which helped her maintain the peace during that thousand years period. For me it's the old, big and strong trees. I admire them. Despite my name, I like flowers the most. Even the most common ones like daisies and sow thistles are very beautiful in my eyes. Druid magic is different from unicorn magic, and earth ponies, due to their connection to the nature, are the most likely to have this kind of skills. There were some pegasus and unicorn druids, but most were earth ponies like us. The druid abilities depend on their individual talents. Neither I nor Tree Song can shapeshift into animals, but some of the druids in the past were able to do it.

Greetings, I'm Forest Storm, the last surviving member of the ancient Druid Brotherhood of Equestria. Until recently, due to some circumstances, I was very secretive about myself and didn't even want to reveal my name. But the situation has changed, so now I can give you any information you need. (picture by @Windy Breeze) Hey, I'm Tree Song, the druid's apprentice! I have a lot to say about us, but I think it's better if we do it in the form of answering your questions, so ask away! (OOC: No rules this time, I'm pretty confident the people here are well behaved and will not do anything bad...)

Puns

I might be interested, if it doesn't happen too late my time (I'm in Europe).

"Nice to meet you too, Twinkle Theory!" This time Cozy Glow made sure to get Flurry's friend's name right. She didn't want to bring too much attention to her cutie mark, so she decided to bring up another subject. "Well, I'm a pegasus, but I'm really interested in magic! Do you have anything here that can be used by non-unicorns? Like, you know, potions and stuff?" Cozy asked, looking around the lab curiously.

Philomena Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon post-reformation Luna's batpony guards Flurry Heart's future Kirins Prince Blueblood

@Oni Musha I have made some edits to my posts as well, I think everything is in order now, and we can continue the RP.