Dawn and Dusk - a My Little Pony Roleplay (RP thread)

[Waaaghpower]

Noticing Patents armor, Thunder had to supress an envious stare. Just because he made one piece of fancy armor didn't make him talented, and it certainly didn't compensate for his rudeness.
She also would have gone with the forest, had not Patent suggested it before she could. "No way," she said. "I can protect my own back just fine, but I doubt you guys stand a chance making it through the forest and the princess saidyou guys sshould survive for a while, at least so you can finish your mission. We go around."

[Mabbz]

Eventually everypony had decided on their chosen equipment. Pale Ale was persuaded by one of the guards to take a tough leather overcoat, which would provide some protection against both nature and attack. They were subsequently shown to guest rooms to spend what was left of the night.

The Guards woke them at dawn the next morning and with no small amount of grumbling the group was sent on their way. Thunder and Patent had a short argument about the route, which only ended because Pale stepped in and voted that they go through the forest so they could get this over with as quickly as possible. He had no desire to spend a full week listening to their bickering.

They set off through the forest, Thunder at the front to scout ahead, Patent at the rear to avoid any contact with Thunder while the other two walked side by side in the middle, embarrassed at their companions. There wasn't a great deal of talking as they walked besides Plumbers trying and failing to convince Pale to part with some alcohol. They stopped for lunch in a clearing around midday, at which point disaster struck.

"I'm glad we haven't run into any trouble yet" said Plumbers amicably.

Instantly, the ponies heard a growl from the edge of the clearing. Springing to their hooves they watched as four wolves stalked towards them. They appeared to be made of bits of wood, with the occasional leaf thrown in for variety.

[Mabbz]

Plumber took a cautious step toward the timberwolves, hoping to bring a peaceful end to this. He wasn’t sure if timberwolves were sentient, but he intended to try. His movements attracted the attention of the wolves; they didn’t stop growling, but they didn’t advance.

“We -” Plumber began.

He got no further as he was interrupted by a loud crack. A crossbow bolt had slammed into the lead timberwolf, snapping some of the sticks that made up its foreleg. As it howled, the other three leaped forward.

Two of the wolves pounced on Plumber. Desperately he reared into the air, his front hooves kicking to hold them off until he could draw his wrench. He managed to bat one of them away, but the other sank its teeth into Plumber’s right hoof briefly before retreating to avoid having its face stomped into the ground.

Pale ran forward to assist the beleaguered earth pony, swinging his truncheon with magic. Unfortunately the wolves saw it coming and one of them snatched it out of the air like a dog catching a stick.

The third wolf tried to attack Thunder, but the pegasus was able to dart out of the way, spiralling quickly into the air. The timberwolf snarled as its prey escaped beyond its reach.

Abandoning its attempts to reach Thunder, the wolf turned its attention to the fourth pony just in time to see a crossbow bolt heading straight for it. Patent smirked as the bolt smashed the wolf’s head to pieces.

“Aren’t you going to take part in this fight?” Patent yelled contemptuously at Thunder as the wolf fell apart. Thunder responded by swooping round into a dive, Her wings beating furiously as she gained speed. A deafening crack rang through the forest as she pulled of her sonic thunderclap, but she had misjudged her speed and was still several metres in the air at the time. The shockwave was too far away from the wolves to have any effect other than attracting their attention.

Seeing her failure, she tried to slash the injured wolf with her wingblades as she passed. Unfortunately wingblades were designed for speed and finesse rather than chopping wood so they merely glanced off the timberwolf, bruising her wing and throwing her off balance towards a tree. The angry timberwolf sprang after her.

Wincing as his injured hoof slammed back to the ground, Plumber finally managed to pull his wrench from his saddlebag with his mouth. The solid metal wrench swung through the air, smashing the wolf that had bitten him to splinters.

Unable to make pull his truncheon from the wolf’s mouth, Pale Ale tried to buck it. The wolf dodged the kick, still gripping the weapon. Before it could recover Pale reared back and stomped down on the timberwolf breaking it apart.

Twisting skilfully in midair, Thunder didn’t crash. Instead she managed to use the tree as a springboard, slamming into the approaching timberwolf. The blow knocked it to the far edge of the clearing. It got up unsteadily, only to collapse as another crossbow bolt hit it, shattering its already injured leg. Whimpering, it turned and fled into the forest.

[spoiler=injuries]
Plumber: bitten hoof (painful, but not really important)
Thunder: bruised wing (painful, but not really important)
[/spoiler]

[kingofmonkeys]

Plumber's crack winced and sat down to examine his hoof after directing a kick towards one of the scraps of wood remains. "Pale ale I don't suppose I could get some of that alcohol?" at the frown he received he sighed "so I can make sure this bite doesn't get infected who knows what a bite from whatever in Tartarus those  Horrible things are I don't want to loose my leg from a little bite."

[Waaaghpower]

Thunder simply glowered, looking at the chip on the edge of her blade and feeling it throb a bit as a purplish bruise fromed, hard to see under her black coat. She  knew she should ask Patent to fix the chip, but was too embarrassed after accomplishing nothing but hurting herself in the fight to ask. At least she hadn't run into the tree, though. That would have ended her reputation as a flyer... and probably hurt a lot more than a bruised wing. "I could use a swig of it myself," she told Ale quietly.

[Minrat]

Having not looked into medicine, and having little else to do as the others tended to their wounds, I walked over to the remains of the timberwolves to pick up  my undamaged bolts.   I then walk over and rest next to Plumber while giving thunder various looks of smugness.

[Mabbz]

The four ponies rested from their brief battle, finishing their lunch and doing various minor tasks to pass the time. Patent’s search for his bolts turned up two of his three shots, but only one of them was still usable. Thunder didn’t seem to be paying much attention, so his smug looks passed without incident.

Shortly after Plumber had cleaned his wounds with Pale’s alcohol, he spotted a faint glow around the remains of the timberwolves. Curious, he wandered over for a closer look. The sticks were moving.

“Uh... guys?” he called to the others. “I don’t think these things are dead.”

“What the hay...” muttered Thunder, as a wooden foreleg started to reform. Leaping forward, she crushed it with her hoof. After a few seconds the sticks started to reattach again. “Horseapples.”

“Come on, everypony, get digging,” said Pale Ale. “If we bury them it should slow them down at the least.”

Since none of them had shovels they eventually settled for burying them under a pile of rocks. This seemed to work, but the ponies decided to set off shortly after finishing their makeshift cairn. None of them wanted to stick around and fight those wolves a second time.

The day wore on as they marched through the forest. They weren’t attacked again, but they kept an eye out all the same. By sunset they were all feeling quite tired, especially Plumber since his hoof had been aching with every step he took. As the last of the suns rays passed over the horizon the four of them found another clearing to spend the night in.

As they were about to set up camp (tents had been provided by the guards), Thunder spotted something through the trees. Rising above the canopy she saw some kind of structure not far away. A ruined building, by the look of things. She swooped back down to tell the others. It might prove to be a more easily defendable location for their camp, after all.

[Waaaghpower]

Landing as far separated from Patent as possible while still in the group, Thunder said, "I found somewhere to stay the night. Looks fairly stable, it should be pretty good." Gesturing with her head in the direction of the shed, she added, "What do you guys think? Plumber? Pale? Sound good?" Excluding Patent from the question was completely intentional, if a childish spite.

[Walrus Man]

"I'd rather not spend the night out in the cold if it's all the same to you." Pale glanced towards the direction Thunder was indicating. "How far is it from here?"

[Minrat]

Well-at least thunders wings are good for something.  Some shelter would be nice for the night.

[kingofmonkeys]

"we should use shelter while we have the opportunity we may not find it some other night" Plumber stated

[Walrus Man]

"Well that settles it then. Lets go." Adjusting his saddlebags to a more comfortable position, Pale Ale began to walk in the direction of the structure. "Hopefully nothing else had the same idea, I don't fancy sharing my bed space with forest critters."

[Waaaghpower]

"Well come on, just follow me," Thunder said, zipping away. She stayed slow enough to be followed at a fast clip, but only by circling quite a bit. Part of her wanted to show off her speed after such complete failure to do anything in the earlier battle.

[Mabbz]

The foursome quickly hurried through the trees towards the ruins. It was a journey of only a few minutes, but it was starting to get a bit dark and none of them wanted to be caught outside in the Everfree forest at night.

Before long, they reached the building. It wasn’t as ruined as they had expected; it still had a roof and all four walls, although the doors and windows were long gone and nature had certainly begun taking over. Vines had grown up on the walls and even partly over the doorway, but they were easily pushed aside to allow them entry to a large entrance hall that appeared to take up most of the structure.

The interior was... odd. There didn’t seem to be a single flat surface anywhere; everything was twisted and warped. There were a number of objects that appeared to be chairs, although most were broken and all were distorted similarly to the walls. One of them was somehow attached to the ceiling.

While most of the paint had long since flaked off, it was clear from what was left that originally the place had been a riot of colour. In addition, there were the remains of various carvings and other decorations all over the place, the placement of which seemed utterly random.

The only thing that seemed to have been placed with any thought was the bronze statue at the opposite the doorway. It depicted a strange creature made up of all kinds of different animals; a lion’s paw, an eagle’s claw, a goat’s head (with mismatched horns) and two wings like those of a pegasus and a dragon respectively were all apparent.

Discord’s reign had lasted decades, and only ended nine years ago. All four ponies knew exactly who and what this creature was, and even though this was just a statue they all felt some sense of unease. Abandoned though it was, few ponies would enjoy the idea of spending the night in the temple of the spirit of chaos.

[Walrus Man]

Almost immediately Pale Ale began to back towards the entry, his ears pressed flat against his skull. "On second thought, maybe we should find somewhere else to set up camp?"