"I have the flag!" I shouted, just before using my momentum from a dip in the air to catapult myself over the castle and snatch the flag from the roof. I skidded down the tiles on the other side and kicked off the back so I could swoop around and climb to a tower. A couple of confused looking guards ducked. My speed had dropped, so I put one hoof on a parapet and swivelled on it to go back the way I came. Back down, back up the roof, slide down the shingles... first one came loose and gave me a better glide over the rest, so that when I kicked off I had a lot more speed. The momentum was such that I barely made it over the castle's outer wall and back over the city. I wedged the flag in between my side and my saddlebag. For some reason it stuck.

I swooped low over the uppermost level to tease the guards. Almost in reach, but not quite! I tapped one on the top of the helmet and the surprise floored him. The other two in that group redoubled their efforts to catch me. Not that it helped, because I was already speeding away to the ramparts. I perched on a turret and took the flag out to toss it from hoof to hoof. A blast of light next to me knocked me back. I only fell a foot or so, but I fumbled the flag and nearly dropped it over the edge. After catching it, I looked around for the source. A second blast crashed against the parapets. I was more prepared this time and ducked behind it. I looked out again and found Stars, teeth bared, bracing to fire a third bolt of magic. Maybe she thought that if she could help catch me they'd set her up nice here. I couldn't blame her - that's what I'd do in this situation. But then if I were her I'd probably then go and hold up a general store with magic.

I hooked the flag in a foreleg and jumped off to reclaim my loot before she got to it. I yelled, "take the flag from me!" and tossed the flag at House. The pole smacked him on the forehead and knocked his hat off, and he bounced it between his legs a couple of times before it swung over his back and he fell over. I almost crashed into the inn watching this. A flap of my wings in the nick of time stopped me violently making out with the wall, and instead I tripped on the gable and slid to a halt along the top of the roof. My landing threw a guard off balance. I'm guessing he was coming to recover the gold, but now all he was doing was rolling head over heels off the roof and back to ground level.

Stars picked up the flag and handed it to the guards. While they were looking at each other discussing how they were going to put it back, I thought about how to lighten my gold load a little bit. Honestly, the saddlebag was probably the most useful thing to me. The gold though... I'd have to spend it quickly. But I wouldn't be able to do that with the guards all running after me. I heaved the second saddlebag on and took flight. Stars fired a shot that came startlingly close to my face, and forced me to land in a stumble. When I got up, one of the guards was right in my face. My vision did that weird thing it did back in Colton. What was with that? Was there something funny in that food?

"Hold it! Your spree is at an end. I'll take any stolen goods you have. The next move is yours - pay your fine, or I haul you away!" He stared at me, unblinking. I chanced a look around. Everyone else had stopped what they were doing and was just standing there. Even Stars, who had stopped in the middle of casting something likely rather nasty. I looked down at the floating text that was now in the corner of my field of vision. This was just getting weird. Apparently I had three options - paying a fine of 3303 gold, going to jail, or resisting arrest. I didn't know if I even had that much gold on me, and the hell with jail. Just as well my slight step back seemed to be interpreted as 'resist arrest'.

The world started moving again, and the guards started advancing on me with swords. I turned tail and jumped off the terrace, gliding to get a head start on them. I turned just at the doors of the cathedral to make it look like I was cutting down the alley beside it. Instead, I turned on a hoof to head inside from the hidden door. The extra weight of the gold was making turning an exercise and a half, but it helped in pushing through the heavy church doors. Once I was through, I stayed a moment to stop it from swinging back and forth too much. Once it wasn't making noise anymore, I turned and bolted down the aisle.

Talk about high church! The pews weren't much to look at, but the windows were themselves colourful paintings of gods and saints I'd never heard of, and the main altar was decked out in colourful felt. I thought dyes were supposed to be rare in medieval societies (they sure are where I come from), but lo and behold, even a fucking church is a technicolour dreamland. It was even pleasantly warm standing in the light through the windows. Rather than boggle at the stained glass, I went straight for the staircase in the middle of the hall. I vaulted a mare who was ascending, making her squeal in fright. She gibbered a syllable or two of protest, but gave up when I ignored her. I performed eeny-meeny-miney-moe in my head in the space of half a second to choose a door from the three at the bottom of the stairs. I went left.

The room was all vaults and arches. It appeared to be living quarters, with barrels and food and a table set up. I took a bottle of wine while I was here and slotted it into the last space in my bag. I started checking doors. I went down another flight of stairs to some more doors. I stopped and listened. There was no pounding of hooves on any of the floors above - I must have given them the slip, at least for now. I put an ear to each of the doors. Two of them were occupied. I went into the third. It was an empty bedroom with a double bed. More wine? Praise fucking Tailos, I want to be in this religion. The cupboards were full of junk. I fought the kleptomaniacal urge to take it all anyway and moved on to the closet. Clothes of varying degrees of fanciness. After some inspection, I grabbed a robe and the plainest looking cloak I could find (I suspected that it may have in fact been a bedsheet) and threw it on over everything else. When I turned, I stepped on the corner and tripped. For my second attempt, I walked around in circles a few times to get the hang of walking in a cloak. After the third trip I started to get it, and went to leave.

I listened first. No footsteps. I opened the door and charged up the stairs, then through the door back into the main chapel. I hurried up the stairs. The mare from earlier was doing something at the altar. I don't know if she gave me a look or not, I was already going for the exit. I slowed my sprint to a sombre shuffle, pulled the hood as far over my face as I could, and nosed the door open.

The guards were still running around in a panic. A mage was trying to help the guards put the flag back up, but they weren't having much success. I giggled when the flag slid off and bopped one of them on the head. A house had caught fire, and House and Stars were answering questions. I headed downtown to lighten my purse before I'd hit the road.

Outside the fighters' guild, two guards stopped me. Not in the 'stop right there criminal scum' way they were at it earlier, more like...

"Excuse me citizen!" I stopped and tilted my head. The one doing the talking was tall and front-heavy, with a voice that projected twelve kinds of loud at the same time, and he looked like his armour was going to burst from sheer brawn. The other one was gaunt and bony, practically swimming in his chainmail. Why do I keep running into odd couples? "Have you seen a pegasus in the last few minutes? Orange, green mane and tail, blue clothes? She's carrying a device that seems to cast an unidentified destruction spell. She's incredibly dangerous."

I made a quick mental backtrack of all the other ponies I'd seen. Lots of earth ponies, a few unicorns, but no pegasi or zebras. I did my best to copy their accents. It came off kind of awkward. "Pegasi? In Brumare? I don't believe it."

"This one's orange... mind lifting the hood?" the other one said.

"Can't. Vows. You wouldn't want to be unintentionally persecuting me for my religion, would you?"

"And what religion would that be?"

I started to sweat. Fortunately, Big McHugeLarge came to my rescue. "Leave it. She sounds like a Redgrade. Ma'am, we're sorry for wasting your time." I smiled, nodded, and walked around them. The thin one kept glaring me as I left.

Out of curiosity, I entered the mages' guild. The guards were recruiting help from them, and a couple were leaving to assist them in their increasingly desperate endeavours. Since everyone here was busy, I just walked through like I had a purpose. Maybe there were some gems or other magical crap around I could loot for selling.

The lobby had locked display cases, and while the ponies around were deep in business, they were still around, so I didn't fancy trying to break into them in front of them. I went down the stairs to the basement. The whole place was quite plush - lots of fancy lab equipment, ornate books and the occasional gem around. I passed someone in the corridor. They gave me a wary look. I stopped and slowly turned my head towards them. They went wide-eyed and carried on swiftly.

I opened a door into a storage-looking place. Even their pantry was lavish - under barrels and crates was a deep red carpet. It probably wasn't their finest one, but it was still pretty fine by my standards. After a quick sniff around, the place seemed to be just for food storage rather than anything arcane and valuable. I nudged a barrel with a hoof, and a peach rolled off a pile on top. I caught it and slipped it down my sleeve, and used my wing to guide it into my bag. Or, I tried. It slipped out the other end of the robe the first time, so I tried the trick again and got it the second time. I took another one to go, and turned to leave. I was immediately met by an invisible wall of something, causing me to throw the half-eaten peach and fall over. My hood was thrown back. I knocked the door closed. Another voice said "Ow".

"Hey, watch it!" I punched where the invisible thing was.

"Ah! Stop hitting J'skar!"

"J'skar, eh?" I quirked a brow and retrieved the peach.

"Drat!" J'skar realised his mistake. Some dancing, faintly purple lights spiralled through the air in front of me, and a pegasus appeared in a plain robe. He had a bump on his face and was rubbing his shoulder. I saw what the guards meant about accents - he had these purring rhotics, hissing sibilants and extreme vowels that hinted at an exotic origin. Or maybe it was just the next country over, I had no idea. "Now J'skar's prank is over."

"Prank?"

"Yes! The head of the guild is always lording it over us. So we play pranks. J'skar has been hiding from her for days!" He certainly smelled like it. Now that I think about it, why do ponies readily tell me everything about themselves within thirty seconds of talking to them? It's convenient, but it's really weird.

"Hmm. Here's an idea." I pulled back the robe to get at my bags, and fished out the last silence grenade. "This goes off when this pin gets pulled out. If you've got a spell or something to make the pin come out when she opens her desk, well... just make sure you stand well back."

"J'skar thinks he can think of something." He reached his skinny hooves for it, and I backed away.

"Ah-ah! You have to do something for me in return." He pouted and ran a hoof through his mane. That explained why it was all pulled-back and messy. I thought it was just a wizard thing. "Oh what, my good J'skar, can you do for me?"

He thought for a moment. Then, his eyes lit up and he cracked a smile. "J'skar could teach you a spell."

"A spell, eh?" I didn't know pegasi could do magic, but he can't have been bluffing. "What kind of spell?"

"J'skar specialises in destruction spells. Make things go boom." He gave a toothy laugh.

"Continue." I liked this guy already.

"Have you any magic training?"

"Complete beginner."

"Hmm. J'skar knows the spell for you." He stood with his back to the door, and positioned me next to him in the same way. "Pegasus and earth magic has trick to it in mind. Not intuitive like unicorn magic. Hold out hoof, like this." He raised one of my hooves out horizontal. "Clear thoughts. Empty head of plans." That wasn't hard. It implied I had a plan in the first place. "Now think of fire. Imagine only fire." At first I pictured J'skar on fire, and that made me giggle, but then I cut it to just fire. I did want to learn the spell, after all. He paused, presumably while I was picturing the fire. "Now, think of a thing that makes you angry, then push anger through fire." I screwed up my face trying to get my head around this. It was a weird enough mental image to try and conjure, but I was having the most trouble with thinking of something that actually made me properly angry.

Raiders? Not really. They were actually kinda funny a lot of the time. Missing out on the opportunity to be a thane (which I still didn't know what that was)? I wasn't too bummed about it. Snowy? Okay, I was kinda frustrated about Snowy. I pictured Snowy throwing the alicorn through a fire by the neck. I felt a flash of warmth at the end of my hoof. I opened my eyes, and there was nothing there but a puff of smoke. J'skar frowned.

"Hm. What is your birthsign?"

"Uh, I dunno. My birthday was some time last week if that helps."

"Ah. The Steed."

"Why? I'm not sure what astrology has to do with it."

"J'skar once met fellow pegasus who was Atronach. She was very bad at many things, but she was gifted destruction mage and did not know it because she did not make her own magicka. Heheh. She used puns to ge-"

Fucking puns. I ran a decapitated head through the mental fire, followed by the words 'not a way to get ahead in life'. A spear of fire shot from the end of my hoof and left a scorchmark on the stone on the far side. J'skar jumped, and stared at the mark. I looked at him and nodded. "Not bad, J'skar." I blew the smoke from the end of my hoof and tossed the grenade at him. I opened the door. "Careful with that."

"My greatest thanks... tell J'skar, should we meet again, what is your name?"

I looked over my shoulder as I stepped out of the room. "Oh! Duh, I'm an idiot. Atom Smashe-"

"There she is!" I turned and looked at the door. Stars was pointing over the shoulder of Big McHugeLarge and his seedy sidekick Twiggy. I turned and legged it to the other end of the corridor. There were doors to bedrooms, but that was it. The two guards advanced on me. I tried the flare spell - it fizzled. Didn't have enough time to get good and mad. The big guy charged, sword out. In here it was just like the stable - too easy. I waited for him to get close, then I beat my wings once and I was sailing along the ceiling. I landed two-legged on Bony's head, then the other two legs followed, and I sprung from him to near the door. I couldn't see J'skar. House was at the back of the stairwell, looking unsure what to do. I was, however, face to face with Stars, horn practically on fire. I ducked, and the shot singed the tips of my ears. I reversed a couple of steps. My gun was still under my robe, and I was too excited to try the flare spell again.

She lurched forward. House was thrown into her by something, and the pair of them bowled me over. I looked up to see a unicorn in the doorway. She looked like she was panicking, and her horn sparked and crackled as spells were started but then abandoned. She bounced on the spot, looking from side to side. Then she just rolled her eyes and muttered something, and the air became thick with the confusing and plot-twisting aroma of wizardry.

I landed on my back after a bright white flash again. It wasn't dark. In fact there were clouds above me, on a greeny-blue sky. Whatever I was lying on was wet. I squinted and sat up. Grey. Brown. Cracked concrete. Faintly green colour to the air, most apparent when looking at the far-off, barren hills, covered in dead trees and bombed-out buildings. A wetness that would never be drained. A bent-over sign that said Altrickham. I sighed.

"Argh!" I heard behind me. "I'm gonna kill her. I'm gonna kill her."

I turned around in time to start backpedalling from a muddy, red-faced, steaming Shooting Stars advancing on me. "Wait! What about... something, something, adding to wasteland... something?" She stopped. She was breathing heavily through her nose, with a frown that looked like it was made of concrete. While she was fuming like a bull, House got up, fixed his hat, and came over to us.

"Okay."

"Great!"

"I won't pull you apart by each leg on one condition."

"Oh."

"Hand over everything you stole."

I gawped. "What?" She raised a brow and lit her horn. "Okay, okay!" I pulled off the cloak and robe and flung them at her. She folded them neatly and stashed them in her own bags.

"Give me the wine." The top of the bottle was sticking out of my bag. I sighed and gave it to House.

"And the gold," Stars said. I emptied the saddlebags of gold in front of them. She caught it by levitation. "And the saddlebags."

"Hey! I need these! My saddlebags are shitty!"

"Well, if you don't want to do that, I can pull out your jugular and shake you by it until it snaps..." I groaned, and threw the bags down. She split the gold evenly between them and separated them. She hitched one to House's side and one to hers. "And the other things."

"What other things? I don't have anything else!"

"Are you sure about that? Because if I have to search you, I'm going to do it by incinerating you and sifting through the ashes."

I started rummaging through my bags. It wasn't too hard really, just look for any loot with a semblance of colour. Xena was still in here, amazingly. A few seconds later, I pulled out the three apples and the peach I'd nicked from various cellars, and just let them roll wherever. Stars caught them all. She glanced at them, then had to do so a second time.

"There. That's everything, I swear."

"Are these..."

"I think they're called fruit, Stars."

"They're... these have seeds in them. Actual, fertile seeds! Do you know what this means?" The fury of a thousand suns had vanished. She was hopping from leg to leg with excitement.

"That you have to be careful eating them?"

She bopped me on the head with one. "We can start growing things again! We can rebuild!" She put most of them away. "This is... this is everything I was saying earlier! You just tear this swathe of chaos through everywhere you go and somehow the universe, like, makes the Moneigh Lisa out of the rubble."

I frowned. "Can I at least have the flesh?"

She took a bite out of the apple she had left. "No." She started walking.

House pulled the wine back out. "Care to celebrate?"

"Certainly." She took it, popped the cork and took a sip. House had to stop walking when he drank, so he took a substantial swig. "I'll have to put in a recommendation to the Rangers to look for more red alicorns. If we can deconstruct the spell that one used, we might be able to establish reliable contact with that other world. I was able to ask one of the town guards about Cyfeirnod. They know him as an... Altmer, I think was the word he used? Don't know what it means. An Altmer sorceror that went missing some years ago. You probably don't know it, Atom, but you might have just done the wasteland its biggest service yet."

"So, does that mean I can..." Stars floated the bottle over to me, but just used it to bop me on the nose.

Level up! Well at least this won't be bugging out anymore New perk: Oh, Shazbot!

You move 50% faster when carrying the flag.