Celestia gawped at me in horror. "YOU ATE HIM?"

"Ah, yup."

She staggered, actually staggered back, jaw hanging in horror. "You ATE a SAPIENT BEING?"

"Well not much, personally. He tasted terrible, and the meat was sort of gritty. I think it was all those minerals in his diet. The dogs thought he was delicious, though."

She turned away. Her head hung down as she gagged. "He was an intelligent being!!"

I threw my hands in the air...well as far as they could go with me still dangling from my chains. "And so were the Diamond Dogs! He ate them, they ate him! It's the whole beautiful circle of life, Princess!"

She wouldn't look at me. She just stood there fluttering her wings and going "Ugh."

"Besides, what I was I supposed to do with a dozen tons of dead dragon?" I went on. "It would have taken a week to dig a grave large enough, and a funeral pyre would have been visible from twice the distance of Canterlot. Besides, the Diamond Dogs were starving. They could barely walk and dig, much less hunt."

No sale. She looked over her shoulder at me in revulsion. It was clear I was now Hannibal Lecter in her eyes. "To think such a thing as you was left to roam around my kingdom," she said.

"Fine, whatever. Shall I continue?"

Things were moving fast. In less than two days I'd gone from being a helpless victim stranded in an alternate dimension, to being a barbarian warlord. I had soldiers. I had minions. I had a mountain of treasure.

I had the runs.

It was probably inevitable. I mean, I got the green apple splatters if I traveled out of state; I'd gone into another entire universe this time around, I would have been surprised if I didn't get some shocks to my system from the local germs and bugs and stuff. And call it a hunch, but humans probably aren't designed to digest cockatrice burgers either. Dragon steaks cooked in a dirt pit are right out. The celebratory feast the night before had caught up with me. I probably should have taken a clue from the fact I saw some of the Diamond Dogs crunching up gemstones with their meal. Anything with a digestive tract that hardy probably needs it.

By the next morning I was busy squatting over our latrine pit, making my offering to the vengeful god Montezuma and cursing my fate. Cursing pretty much everything else, too. It was late in the day by the time I managed to crawl away from the latrine more than a few steps before having to run back.

By the time I managed to hike up my pants for the last time, I was shaky as a newborn calf and in a foul enough mood to curdle gasoline. This was NOT going to work. I was not going to sit on a pile of treasure with nothing but a bunch of smelly, flea-bitten dog-orcs for company and getting the hershey squirts every time I ate a meal. Somewhere out there were the persons and/or ponies responsible for my misery, and I needed to find them and beat some answers out of them. And d#$% it, I wasn't going to crap myself to death in a cave while I did it.

Time to get organized.

"Skank! Mange! Runt!" The gruesome threesome came running. I'd found a battered throne in the hoard, and had set it up atop the pile. They groveled at my feet, face down in a king's ransom. "Skank. Take a couple of dogs back to camp, fetch my books." The burly dog scurried to obey. "Keep them clean and dry and don't manhandle 'em. I need to read 'em!" I shouted after him. "--And put them on a shelf when you get back!"

My gut gave a gurgle. I grunted and looked at the other two. "I need food. Other than Big Boss on a stick, that is." Mange sniggered. "Fruit. Vegetables. Bread. You know any place where we can get some?"

Mange and Runt looked at each other. "O-only ponies make that kind of food, Dark Master," Runt said.

I facepalmed. Of course. The last creatures I wanted to see were the only ones who had what I wanted. Five would get me twenty that the ponies were the only race around here with anything resembling civilization, like tools, agriculture, medicine...

Raid their town. You stole the books, steal whatever else you need. They're stupid and cowardly, they deserve to be preyed upon.

...and I was still nursing bruises from the last time I tried to deal with them.

You have more on your side now. Arm the diamond dogs, do a smash and grab raid.

Attracting their attention now would be a bad idea too. Most of them seemed cowardly, but those six with the magic doodads seemed pretty willing to mix it up. I was hiding out in the Everfree, where the little pastel twerps weren't willing to go, but if I went smashing about like I did the first time -- I still thought I could have cowed them into submission if it hadn't been for the winged purple one and her magic macguffins, mind --- they might start getting a little more proactive and sent out a party to track me down.

Then we're not ready yet, we need to be stronger

Getting stronger was a good idea. Or at least getting my suffering guts under control. A magical duel while trying not to load my shorts didn't sound like much fun.

First things first, though. Maybe I had other options. Those spellbooks could have all sorts of answers. "Mange, Runt... time to take a survey. Let's see how many dogs here can read."

Guess how many could read. Go on, take a guess. I'll wait.

...Okay, if it was any number higher than "zero," you lose. In fact, this lot were so illiterate that you'd have to represent their cumulative reading ability in negative numbers. Cartography seemed to be pretty low-priority too; the dirt-sketched maps of the surrounding area they made were less informative than the dirt they were drawn on. I was starting to get a grasp of why ponies seemed to be the dominant species in this place. I left the dogs to their various tasks and went and sat on my throne, fuming.

Runt crept up to where I was sitting and looked at me over the arm of the throne. "What we do now, Dark Master?" he said.

I'd been brooding over that point. I needed info, I needed intel. I could send out spies, I supposed. But that would be begging to be caught; these guys weren't exactly "assassin's creed" material.

You really don't get how dependent human beings are on technology. Especially my generation.  It was infuriating; I kept getting the urge to look things up on Wikipedia, or to check out the surroundings on Google Maps. I was a digital age baby--- younger than the internet-- completely cut off from the data I had spent most of my life immersed in. Hell, every time I went into a dark section of cave I caught myself fumbling for a light switch.

Then I remembered this thing I saw on 'World of Warcraft...'

I got to my feet. Time to experiment.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. I could see it in my mind's eye; energies rippling around me, through me. I needed to do something different with the weird energy I could feel coiling around me. I wasn't sure what I was doing. I wasn't sure what I was doing when I summoned fire, or summoned my spectral hands. I just formed an image in my mind of what I wanted to do, and something-- probably the medallion-- whipped it up, made to order. I was just hoping that this order wasn't too complex.

I felt it as the energy coalesced, swirled into a ball over my hands... then suddenly I was in the air, looking down at the cavern. Diamond dogs were staring up at me in awe, pointing and yelping. I stumbled, disoriented, and opened my eyes--

And I was back on the floor, staggering slightly. All around me diamond dogs were staring at a spot over my head. I looked up; floating there, a few feet from the ceiling, was a translucent green eye, about the size of an orange, with a dark green iris and an inky black pupil, glowing faintly. I closed my eyes again; once again I was looking down from the ceiling. Bingo.

Now for the final test: I tried to move the eye. Slowly it drifted down from the ceiling, and my perspective with it. I brought it down to hover over my outstretched hand. "Perfect," I said. I sat down in my throne again and sent the eye out of the cave. Time to do a little aerial reconnaissance.

My first goal? Straight up.

I sent the eye shooting up, past the treetops, past the cloud cover. Slowly I panned around.

Down below, the Everfree, dark and tangled and impenetrable. to the west, what had to be Ponyville: tiny colorful houses around a sparkling riverbend. Further in the distance, to the northwest, I could see a strange cluster of clouds, streaked with rainbows and pretty curlicues of mist. I focused the eye. I could see pegasi flying, tiny dots, flying back and forth amongst the... cloud houses?? Pegasi lived in the clouds? How?? How did they keep stuff from falling through? What happened when it rained?

Fluffy cloud heaven. I gave a snort. I wondered if they floated back and forth playing little gold harps. Or maybe hung out with the Care Bears. Either way the place was of little use to me; I doubted that I could walk around on clouds.

Disinterested, I looked elsewhere. To the North stood an impossibly high mountain. A waterfall cascaded down one side. Around the bottom and tiered up the sides was a city. And near the very top, clinging to the side of the mountain like a shelf fungus to the trunk of a tree, was an enormous castle covered in peaked roofs and minarets and towers like a child's drawing of a fairy castle. If that wasn't the capital city I'd eat my helmet.

I spun the eye about, spotting swamps, mountains, ravines, open fields. I took a while, soaking it all in till I was confident I had a general feel for the lay of the land. Then I dropped the eye back down below the canopy, and set off for my first destination.

I sent the spy-eye flying just below the treetops, dodging branches and the occasional screeching bird-- score, I could hear as well. What a head rush; it had to be zooming along at fifty miles an hour. I was kind of glad I'd kept my helmet on; I was sure I was making all sorts of dorky facial expressions.

I reached the edge of "Whitetail Woods" in no time, then circled back around, past the alicorn statue I'd seen my first night here.... then I was coming up fast on Ponyville. The little thatch-roofed houses were just as twee as I remembered them. In fact, I couldn't see a sign of my little arson attempt anywhere. It had only been a couple of houses, of course; I could be in the wrong part of town. No, there was town hall, over there to the left... jeez, they patched the damage up quick. Then again it had only been straw...

Come to think of it, Everything was pretty much as I recalled; pastel ponies with pictures on their butts, some in cutesy little outfits, just trotting about doing... whatever. Buying, selling, shopping, tending their wee little flower gardens, pushing baby carriages. I would have thought they would be a little more agitated than this. I'd gone stomping through their town flinging balefire everywhere not two days ago. Back home there'd be police out patrolling, and people looking uptight. Yet they were all trotting about like nothing had changed. Were they really this oblivious?

I kept to the eaves and gutters, not wanting my flying eye to be spotted. I managed to eavesdrop on one or two idle conversations, watch a few of them going about their daily business. It was all very folksy, Mister Rogers "hello neighbor" stuff... these guys couldn't even stop being twee long enough to fetch the mail or take out the garbage. I spotted one yellow and pink one talking to the birdies. "Oh good morning mister tweety.."

Gag me.

I probably hung around the marketplace too long. I went there initially because I wanted to try and figure out their monetary system. No luck; I hid in the awning of a vendor's cart for over an hour, and the most I could figure out was that they used gems and gold coins called "bits." The exchange rate? Damned if I know. I'd watch them sell two apples for enough gold to buy a car, and then turn around and use a sliver of gemstone the size of my pinky nail to buy an entire cartload of carrots. And yet, there down the street came a pony wearing a dress (that broke my brain a little; ponies in clothing or wearing accessories. No rhyme or reason to it either. It looked like a little girl had run around town with a costume trunk, playing dress-up with her pets) studded with enough sapphires (she called them that by name) to pay the national debt.  Apple for two bits, apple pie for the same price. It was complete gibberish.

To be fair, I spent less time on watching the transactions than I did on drooling over the food for sale. I saw one of the ponies buy-- and eat-- a lily, though. Weren't lilies deadly poison? Either the lilies or the ponies on this planet were really different. Okay, self-evident answer there.

At the least I figured out they took both gems and gold as money, even if I couldn't figure out the exchange rate. So this dragon hoard of mine would actually be useful.

Okay, where to next? I remembered someone saying once that you could judge a society by the condition of its prisons... so I decided to check out the local public school.

It took me a while to find it. Largely because when I did find it, I thought it was a joke. They actually had a little one-room schoolhouse. A few more pink hearts than usual, but there it was. Little Red Schoolhouse, with a bell and everything. Of all the things I'd seen, this was the most surreal. And that's saying something.

I flew down the belltower and into the rafters. I saw little ponies, sitting at little wooden desks; row after row of little mop tops, heads of curly locks, big shiny cartoony eyes, high pitched little voices. At the front of the class stood a dark cherry-colored pony with a pinkish mane and a Stepford Smile that back on earth would have sent grown men backing out of the room with raised weapons in their hands.

"Good Morning, class!" Augh ye gods, her speaking voice was like someone talking to a three year old.

"Good Morning Miss Cheerilee!" A dozen cherubic little voices answered. Gharrrrgh. I could feel the sugar crystallizing in my ears. I bore the pain and continued watching. Genius moment! Maybe I could get some quick education here. Listen in, maybe pick up some local history or at least some reading skills and--

And... I was conspiring to sneak into school. Somebody shoot me.

The school day was only moderately informative. This class was apparently well past the primary stuff, so they weren't taking reading or writing lessons. The math used the same numbers (figure that one out if you can) but I couldn't glean much from the grammar and spelling tests they took. Science was... surprisingly basic. Isaac Newton could probably get along fine here. Same general laws of physics, molecules, sound waves, gravity, biology, etc. The introduction of magic threw a curveball into some stuff, but Miss Cheerilee kept it to "your magic teachers will explain more later." I got the general gist about earth ponies doing earth stuff, pegasi doing weather stuff, unicorns doing... well, whatever they darn well pleased, apparently, so long as they knew the right spell. And alicorns... were apparently all three combined. Well, well, that could prove useful. Did that mean the alicorn amulet gave me the powers of all three as well?

What made it unbearable was that all of it was interspersed with lectures and homilies about the importance of Friendship and Tolerance, proverbs about the importance of niceness, and of course every. Single. Lesson. Was delivered with that same bobble-headed, you-are-a-toddler-simpleton voice.

Look, I get the importance of everyone getting along to get along. Oldest lesson in the book, right? But any school kid can tell you that the version they teach in school is bullcrap that's been raised to an abortion art form. I'd heard this sort of tune whistled before, usually when some teacher was lecturing me about 'provoking' bullies into beating me up, what with my all standing there minding my own business. It's a load of horse@#$% shoveled on kids by adults who don't want any 'trouble' (also known as 'questions,' 'conflicts' or 'independent thought') and prevent it by turning the kids into mindless, inert, fact-regurgitating lumps.

Meanwhile I was getting a gander at the social interactions going on while teacher's back was turned. That's when the cutie-pie mask came off of everything. Okay, I'd seen some oblivious teachers before but this was sad.

She had to be actively ignoring the little pink one in the tiara and her grey friend in the granny glasses and pearls, for one. As if the jewelry wasn't a clue, those two were obviously the larval form of the High School B@#$, and getting practice in for the puberty-laden metamorphosis at every opportunity. The two were cutting up constantly, making nasty little remarks, just radiating snottiness from every pore. Ol' Teach was acting like she didn't even see them. She was just as oblivious to the orange pegasus sleeping in her class, or to the two goofy looking unicorn colts in the back who were alternately goofing off or spacing out... this lady didn't have any kind of handle on her class at all.

Recess arrived, and everyone ran outside to play. I floated outside and roosted in a nearby tree. I wanted to see what these little fluffballs got up to when there wasn't even the marginal authority figure of Miss Cheerilee around.

It was pretty much what I expected. Kids that age are empty-noggined little things anyway; this bunch was mindlessly insipid. There was one trio of ridiculously overcute fillies who were gabbling together about their 'cutie marks' and 'crusading' for them. Some sort of merit badge or something?

Junior Queen Bee and her understudy Hipster Glasses were busy snarking about how lame all the other kids around them were. The colts were lame, the poor kids were lame, the 'blank flanks' were lame...

Forget brain-blasting all the ponies with the Elements. What's the point, when the local educational system gave the brains of all the foals a daily soft scrub? By the time they were adults If there was any cognitive spark there, it was buried deep. They could phone it in to the board of education here: Mission Accomplished: mass lobotomies completed.

I was almost spotted.. Some bored filly with a candy cane mark on her butt looked up in the tree and must've spotted my eye's glow. I quickly retreated to the bell tower while the little dear waved down Teacher and lisped out an alarm. Big mistake on my part; recess was over. The teacher sent the little fat one back to ring the school bell... with me still inside it.

When my skull stopped echoing and I regained my senses, I decided I'd had my fill of kindergarten and moved on. I did a quick tour of the highlights of the town. A joke shop that looked like a jester's cap. A flower shop. The Town Hall looked promising. It wasn't. Less than nothing was going on inside; the mayor sitting at her desk rubber-stamping a stack of forms; her assistant at a typewriter, hammering out another. I had to go back and look at that one again; yup, the typewriter had only two keys. Two keys and a space bar.

How on earth...?

Forget it. I left the way I came in. Neither mare noticed me, they were too engrossed in their work.

I decided that keeping track of that purple winged unicorn would be a good idea. Flitting from hiding place to hiding place, I quickly flew to the house-tree in which the pompous little menace lived.

BZZAP.

The image went jittery and the flying eye bounced back a few yards. Baffled, I tried approaching from another direction, only to get the same result. She must have put up some sort of shield or warding or something, keeping spies out. Of course that only made me more curious as to what she was hiding. I considered taking a perch nearby and waiting for her to come out, but then the top half of the horse door banged open and the mare in question stuck her head out and glared in every direction, her horn glowing purple. I must have set off an alarm. I made myself scarce; no point in getting the eye caught. She might be able to magically track it back to me or something.

I hid in a rainbarrel and peeked out through a knothole in the side. She stood there for a minute, giving the evil eye to everyone and noone in particular, then slowly retreated inside. I heard the sound of a bolt slamming home and tumblers turning in a lock. Whatever she was up to in there, she wasn't coming out any time soon.

The school bell rang. I sent the eye back to the schoolyard, hovering around the fringes, and kept a lookout for the pink one in the tiara.

It had occurred to me that this little pink brat had to be royalty or nobility of some kind. There was the tiara, for one thing. More importantly was her attitude. And this place did have princesses, after all.

I managed to spot her leaving the school with her flunky Hipster Glasses. They cantered on into town, prattling at each other, Oh daddy got me this, Teacher's such a bore, blah blah blah. I dropped in behind them, still trying to be careful not to be spotted. From that angle I saw their hip marks-- a diamond tiara on the pink one, a spoon on the grey one. What? Oh, I get it. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Or on her butt, anyway. Okay, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, time to go clippity-clop home to Daddy.

They took their sweet time about it, stopping in several shops along the way. I observed from the shadows and corners. What I saw pretty much clinched it; the moment any shopkeep clapped eyes on her little sparkly idiot hat, they turned servile and obsequious on the spot. She was rude, condescending, and obnoxious too... and they just took it with a smile. Only a princess would act like that and still get treated like... well...

"I'm appalled on behalf of your world, if that is what you think Princesses are like," Celestia said.

"Oh no," I said. "My opinion of them has improved vastly since a couple of them chained me to a wall." I jingled my manacles for emphasis.

She regarded me with half-lidded eyes. "You live for sarcasm, don't you."

"It's one of the few joys in my life lately," I retorted.

What was more telling was that every pony she met behaved quite politely to her. But it was obvious they could barely tolerate her presence. Everyone, and I mean everyone, let their face fall the moment her back was turned. I saw foals cross the street to avoid her. Every group of adults had something to mutter to their friend as she passed, and it was never flattering.

She might not have been a princess. After all she was only an earth pony, and I seriously doubted that earth ponies were among the ruling royal elite.  But there were fair odds she was the daughter of some duke or baron or something, some lower-tier nobleman.

Someone ambitious or corrupt. Someone willing to cut deals under the table. Someone I could use.

Eventually the terrible twosome got tired of wasting their daddy's credit and parted ways. I continued to follow Tiara, expecting her to lead me to her mansion or her royal villa or palace... I wasn't expecting to be led to a giant department store.

Holy crap, I thought. They have Wal Marts?

She trotted in the front door like she owned the place. I managed to dive in through the gap and, once again, roost among the rafters. Some gawky half-grown colt greeted her. "Welcome to Filthy Rich's Barnyard Bargains!" he warbled in a cracked voice.

"Is Daddy in?" she asked him.

"Up in his office." The colt pointed to a walk-up office in the back of the store. Diamond Tiara smiled and trotted on back. I zipped on ahead and popped through the office door as she entered, hastily ducking behind a coat rack.

A coat rack. With coats. In a town where everyone went naked and I was starting to think of people going around naked as NORMAL what the heck...

"Daddy!" Tiara said, throwing herself into the forelegs of the stallion there.

I got a look at her father. He was a brown earth pony with a dark brown mane, slicked back in a pompadour. He had three money bags stamped on his hip. He was wearing a tie wide enough for me to surfboard on  and a shirt and jacket collar... but no actual shirt or jacket... I let my mind just skip over that. He looked, in short, like a salesman in search of a used car lot.

Perfect. Even better than a corrupt nobleman.

He gave his daughter a hug. "Hey, pumpkin," he said. "Back from school?"

"Yes Daddy," Diamond Tiara simpered. The next few minutes consisted of Daddy's little girl blathering about her day, interspersed with her begging Daddy for this or that trinket she saw on the way home. Through it all Filthy Rich (for lo, I did perceiveth that wast his name) nodded and smiled and "yes, pumpkin'd". When the brat finally wound down, Daddykins said "Tell you what pumpkin, you go out and look around the store for a while. I've got some papers to finish up, then I have to run to Sweet Apple Acres. Come with me. If you're good, we'll go get a treat at Sugarcube Corner."

"Okay Daddy." She gave him a smooch on the cheek and trotted out the door."Love you!"

"Love you too sugardrop," Filthy said, closing the door behind her.

"Oh gag me," I groaned.

Filthy Rich started, spinning around. "Who's there?" he said, looking around the office.

Back in my cave I jumped. Holy crap, he could hear me? Crap, I had full telepresence. I thought quickly. Best to take this opportunity while I had it. I closed my eyes again and drove the eye out from behind the coat rack."Mister Filthy Rich," I said. "We should talk."

His expression when a green eyeball the size of an orange addressed him was worth the price of entrance. He nearly jumped out of his skin and tried to go for the door. I swooped in between him and it. I couldn't stop him from leaving but he didn't know that. He skidded to a halt, unwilling to try getting past the eye.

"Give me just a moment!" I said. I wondered what my voice sounded like. "I wish to make you a business proposition."

That caught his interest. "What sort of business proposition?" he said warily.

"I am a... private individual in need of certain goods," I said. "In bulk. For various reasons I will not go into, I am unable to simply traipse into town to purchase them. You have those goods. I will make it worth your time to deliver them to me."

"Goods." he said.

"Yes."

"In bulk." he said.

"In considerable bulk."

"What sort of goods?" He asked suspiciously.

I started listing off a few things off the top of my head. "Flour. Sugar. Salt. Cooking oil. Baking powder. Vinegar. Potatoes. Carrots. Vegetables, all sorts. Fish and Eggs." ( I knew they had fish and eggs, I had seen them at market.) "Cooking Utensils. Cloth, by the bolt. Medicines. Bandages." My stomach gave a little grumble, and I remembered my ill fated morning. "....Toilet Paper." Do NOT ask what I wiped with that morning.

His look was incredulous. "Toilet paper."

I sent the eye up in his face. "What?" I said irritably. "You don't think mysterious wizards go doodie?"

He reared back a bit. "It just... doesn't sound like the sort of things a mysterious sinister floating eyeball would want," he said.

"What, were you expecting me to ask for the frozen hearts of a dozen virgins or something?" I chortled theatrically. His grimace was worth it. "No, I need the same humble things anyone else needs."

"'Any One?" he repeated in a puzzled voice.

"What?"

"...Never mind."  He got a canny look in his eye. "Do you have the bits to pay for it?"

I considered the mountain of gems and gold I was perched atop. It was a good thirty foot slope to the cave floor. "I'm fairly certain," I said. "Name your prices. I will pay double for the convenience of the delivery."

That did it. I could practically hear the cha-ching as his eyes lit up.

He produced a catalog of his merchandise. I picked out a list of the basics, and threw in some of the odder things just out of curiosity. (What the heck was Zap Apple Jam?)  I ballparked an estimate for a month's supply for a hundred dogs and myself. He sketched out an amount in bits. I got him to give me a conversion from bits to gems and gold... I wasn't sure how much of this treasure was pressed in bit coins. He informed me it would fill four wagons to bursting. I simply had him add the price of the wagons to the deal.

"Excellent," I said. "We have a deal, then. Where shall we meet to do the exchange? I can come as far as the edge of the Everfree, no farther."

He thought it over. "Do you know where Sweet Apple Acres is?-- never mind, you can't miss it. Only apple farm for a hundred miles. It's due north of here. They have an unused orchard right next to the Everfree, just look for the fallen barn."

"And when?"

"Hmm. Six hours from now too soon?" he said.

"You are an expedient businessman, Mister Rich," I said. "I will see you there, with money in hand." He twitched his ear like I'd said something odd. I ignored it. "Oh, and Mister Rich?"

I flew the Eye up into his face again and poured power into it till his face was illuminated with sickly green light. "If you cheat me-- I WILL KNOW." I gave another theatrical chuckle and snuffed the eye out.

I opened my eyes and got to my feet. "Mange! Skank! Runt!" I bellowed. They came running. "Get ten-- no, twenty dogs together. We're going shopping!"