Billy was, in his own opinion, a very practical man that enjoyed the simple things in life. A cotton stuffed bed with spider silk sheets. Beautiful slave women to enjoy until broken. He enjoyed the warm creamy feeling of blood running into his armor from a fresh kill, the sound of screams and the sound of bones going crunch. And now music can be added to that list. He used to hate it because it was all so cheerful except for what you'll get from creatures like orcs and goblins, but that was just screaming words like bash smash and crash with the beat of drums that could just barely qualify as music.

But at some point the army he was given to march out to raid the nearest town suddenly, and for no apparent reason, broke out into a song he could enjoy. He bobbed his head as the orcs, ogres, trolls, black knights and dragons somehow managed to sing and make it sound good. though he was a tad confused about the dark mistresses that ran after them just to start whipping the troops for the song. He even went so far as to walk more carefully so as to not drown out the music with the clank of his armor.

The music, however, had come to an end when the army had come to a stop.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Billy demanded as he rushed forward to see what had happened. What he saw was a trench. A path carved into the earth from left to right, wide enough that he couldn't throw a stone across and too deep to see the bottom. Taking a moment to once more look left and right and seeing the trench vanishes behind the trees he wasn't sure how far he would have to go to get around this. Considering he was on a road and there was no bridge raised a few flags by itself. His eyes narrowed, normally shifting in red and orange like hellfire it turned completely red as he focused.

"You! Come here." Billy said to a troll that was dumb enough to stick his head out of the line. Cringing to itself the troll rushed forward and stopped in front of his leader with a salute. Billy grabbed him by the neck and threw him over the edge. As the unfortunate troll fell, Billy was bobbing his head with his counting, using the sound of the screaming from below to help measure the distance. However, instead of a sudden stop, the screaming just faded out.

"Does it go all the way down to the bedrock?" Billy asked himself before checking the walls going all the way down. They look like the walls of a dungeon, but he quickly dismissed it. What kind of self-respecting dungeon has walls without any porn carved into it?

Once the screaming stopped and the troops quieted down so as not to draw attention to themselves after what happened to the troll, Billy was able to hear the sound of digging. Without a word he turned to the direction of the sound and started running. Passing through the trees he soon came to a sight that gave him pause. For separated from himself by the seemingly bottomless abyss, he could see three warlocks, six orcs, and a unicorn having a pleasant, by overworld standards, picnic. The digging he had heard was coming from some foxes which were now fortifying another trench only ten feet deep connecting to this massive one.

"What is going on here!?" Billy demanded. The warlocks who were reading their books under the sunlight and the orcs who were playing by pelting each other with chickens jumped at his shout but the blue unicorn just gave him a glance and waved a hoof dismissively.

"If you're trying to cross we haven't set up any of the toll bridges yet. It will be a few hours so you might as well take a break." The unicorn called out. With a raised eyebrow Billy looked down into the darkness below. Setting up tolls was a common thing for keepers. If they get their hands on some land where they can get a lot of traffic they take full advantage to add to their coffers. And yes, with warlocks and orcs involved he now knew this was the work of a keeper.

Still, I've never heard of anyone going quite this far for a toll. Billy thought to himself. Regardless I can't just sit around for a few hours and I'm sure as hells not going to pay them anything. There is also the issue of how close this set up is to my master's dungeon. We'll have to take it anyways. Might as well deal with it now. Without another word, he turned around and marched back to his awaiting forces.

"You know he's not going to wait and bring his army to kill us once he gets them across right?" One of the warlocks asked. A look of worry in his eyes.

"Trixie is aware." The unicorn replied as she reluctantly rose up to her hooves. At that moment their attention was drawn to the sound of rushing water. They watched as it rushed down the ten-foot-deep trench and into the massive one. The problem with fighting a keeper is their movements underground. Rin didn't want any tunnels allowing for any tricky maneuvers or escapes. Once this trench, which now completely surrounds the invader's dungeon is full, anyone trying to dig their way out will be in for a nasty surprise. Still, even with new pathways connecting to the surrounding rivers and several portals flooding helping speed things along it will take a few hours for it to fill up.

"Come on. The imps are done so we don't need to be here anymore. Let's go give Bloody some backup." Turning away from the waterfall Trixie marched into the forest in the direction that the armored man had run off to.

Meanwhile, Billy was already marching his forces across a hastily built bridge made from the surrounding trees. Cut down by ogres, shaved clean by trolls and placed and held together by dragons. The prosses was slow going as they didn't want to burden the makeshift bridge with more than it could handle. Once all of the normal troops were across he had the dragons carry the heavy equipment or valuables across.

He tried to get an ogre across but even with dragons holding on to each arm and flapping as hard as they can, well, ogres are very big. Before it could make it halfway across the bridge there was an ominous crack, and the last that was seen of it was an expression of 'oh shit' before the bridge gave out. The dragons were forced to let the ogre go lest they be dragged down with it.

Billy clicked his tongue in annoyance at being unable to take the heavy hitters anywhere until a proper bridge could be built. With nothing but a glare, the troops hastily got back into formation.

"I don't believe any of you guys paid the toll." A deep voice called out drawing the invaders attention towards what had to be the biggest black knight any of them had ever seen. The fact that the blue in his armor marked him as an epic made his figure all the more imposing. He was backed by some other black knights and some dragons as well as a hoard of skeletons and zombies.

"Impressive, you will make a fine addition to our forces," Billy said with an appraising eye.

"You think you can take me shrimp?" Bloody asked with a snort.

"Impressive as you may be, you are still only a black knight. While I am an overlord." Billy boasted. Meanwhile, under the cover of the forest, Trixie is leaning over to a warlock.

"What's an overlord?" Trixie asked in a whisper.

"An experiment a long time ago. A genius keeper wanted to create lesser keepers as minions and invented a cheap knock-off of a dungeon heart. They were meant to govern conquered lands as replacement lords of the lands so the fake hearts were named tower hearts. I understand the first one was stolen by another experiment, some kind of imp goblin hybrid, as well as spawning nests used to make more of its kind." The warlock replied.

At this time Bloody Horns was bord out of his skull. The 'overlord' as he called himself, was monologuing. Bloody didn't even know what he was going on about as he quickly started tuning the guy out. Something about defeat being inevitable and how Bloody should join his team. No, Bloody Horns was focused on things far more important. Mother's Day was coming up soon after all. He will have to come up with the perfect gift. Is he still talking?

"Alright, I think that's enough. I've given you your pitty screen time, so it's time to get on with it. The boss wanted me to give the new guy a test run so I'm going to let him kill your subordinate. I can kill you if you'd like. Hey Frost! Get to it!" Bloody Horns shouted out.

Billy was momentarily struck speechless by the sheer audacity of this lesser being dismissing him like this. His mind, however, was quickly drawn to a flash of light and a sound he recognized as coming from a teleport. Turning to look across the trench he saw a 10-foot tall skeleton in black and purple armor and sharp horns growing out of its head like a crown. In one arm was a huge tower shield covered in spikes, while the other holds a spiked mace that appeared to be made from bone with runes made from gold and jewels. The extra long handle and the overall design made the weapon look more like a king's scepter than a tool for killing. Its teeth were sharp like nails and its face was shaped into a look of rage, the green glow in its eye socket looked around like a butcher picking out the best meat to start chopping up. The sheer cold radiating off of this undead could be felt even from across the trench.

With a ghostly wail that made even the surrounding trees shake the grave lord swung its mace into the belly of one ogre and tore its torso wide open, not stopping as it continued in its swing doing the same to the belly of the one next to it. With a cry of agony, the two ogres, both twice the size of the grave lord fell to their knees as their intestines spilled out onto the ground. Ogres were known for their durability, so the fact that their flesh had so easily been torn through made quite a bit of a dent in the invading army's morale.

And then all hell broke loose. After taking down two ogres the grave lord let out a hateful scream which carried magic that Billy realized felt like a fear trap, only many times stronger. Himself, three of the most disciplined of the black knights, five dragons and one particularly stubborn warlock were able to resist the effect, but the rest of his forces broke rank and were scrambling about in their panic.

Billy knew from past experience that simply trying to order anyone under the influence of a fear attack would be like getting a river to stop flowing by yelling at it. The situation wasn't helped any by the spells and arrows that had started bombarding the panicked invaders, and he could see something in the surrounding forest was cutting down any of his subordinate that tried to flee... It was an ambush... Billy was pissed! The humiliation of falling into the trap was bad enough, but the humiliating display of his army running around like frightened animals and being butchered like them to, it made him look like a fool.

"You dare... You dare! I will tear your balls right out of your sack, cook them in oil and make you eat them!" Billy cried out in fury as he lifted his weapon for battle. Normally he would go after what he considered to be the greatest threat, but as there is a noticeable lack of ground between him and that undead, the epic black knight will have to do. As Billy was charging into battle Bloody Horns lifted his hammer and gave a mighty swing. Confident in his own strength and the enchantments in his armor and weapons he swung his own sword. It wasn't until the weapons were about to collide that Billy took note of the quality of the war hammer. Dwarven made if he wasn't mistaken, ebony to be exact. It also appeared to be heavily enchanted.

Once the two weapons collided the war hammer, that was enchanted to increase its already hefty 300 libs of weight by 850% for one second, pushed the enchanted sword aside and crashed into Billy, sending him flying into one of his still panicking orcs and continued on through a tree before stopping as the orc he was using as a cushion crashed into a boulder sticking out of the ground. And as if to add insult to injury, he landed next to a shriveled up undead covered in gauze which proceeded to bitchslap him. 'Crack' Freezing as he was getting up, Billy looked down at his magic armor to see several large cracks originating from the spot the hammer had struck.

"...FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUU-" Nope. My fault. My master was never one to tolerate the blame game so trying to shift the blame for all of this will only increase my time on the racks... Still, this armor was one of my keeper's great artifacts. It was once the armor of the Avatar himself! Corrupted by the dark gods! This was a legendary artifact! Billy was sweating now. If he wanted even the slightest sliver of hope of making it out of the torture chamber with his mind and soul intact then he will need to bring back an artifact good enough to make up for it. The hammer! It had to have been given some kind of blessing from a god! There is no other explanation for what it had just done! The hammer and the knight to go with it!

Having reclaimed his calm Billy took a moment to find his helmet that fell off during that short fight as he felt the refreshing power of the healing spell as well as a bombardment of other buffs from his keeper.Oh thank badness! He's giving me a chance to claim the prize! Turning back to the mummy that was still beating on him he cut it in half from top to bottom. There was no more arrogance in his eyes. He marched back into the battlefield to find the black knight was also flashing with different lights, showing that his own keeper was laying lair after lair of buffs on him.

Without another word, Billy charged into battle, cutting down anything that got in his way, even if it was his own men. When he reached the epic he had to dodge another swing from the hammer. He knew without the magic protection of the armor he stood no chance of surviving another hit from that thing. Moving into position, he stabbed onto a gap in the epic's armor, right up into the left armpit. Roaring in pain and anger the giant of a black knight swung his hammer back around forcing Billy to pull back.

Where once it was a complete one-sided slotter for team Rin, the overlord and the others that were able to resist the fear effect were bombarded with buffs while leaving the ones that succumb to the fear to their fate. Now that the invading keeper was giving his underlings some support it wasn't just a battle between minions, but the keepers as well. Both keepers were trying to outdo each other in giving their minions victory. Rin had far more mana to buff all of her troops and heal them on the spot. But the newcomer had the advantage of only having a few minions to focus on. Though the invading keeper was a little annoyed at how few of the ambushers his minions were killing. As she actually gives a damn about her minions, Rin has gotten good at keeping track of her troops on the battlefield and keeping them healed or pulling them out in time to save them.

Both keepers were also taking this time to learn about the competition. The main focus of this battle was the fights between the epic dark knight and his overlord, and the fight between the warlock and the blue unicorn. That last battle wasn't going so well for him. That unicorn was tricky. But that hat! He must have that hat! The hammer as well. Preferably with their wealders with them, he was pretty sure the unicorn was an epic itself. Why else would a keeper allow it to wield such a magnificent artifact? Those artifacts were the only reason he was letting this fight continue, let alone working so hard to support his minions.

At this point, it was a war of attrition. Both keepers working hard to keep their minions going, making all attacks meaningless as any injury was almost instantly heald. The invading keeper even hit all of his feared ogres with overcharged haste spells to delay that giant undead. He let out a curse when the warlock fell and he was quickly dragged away. Foxes? Strange but it's not unheard of for keepers to tweak the create imp spell in order to customize the imps appearance to their liking. More importantly, the field was clean of bodies. He was so focused on the fighting to notice how many of his men were captured.

This was getting absurd. Billy had never been in a fight like this before where any attack he makes just heals almost instantly. And now his skin is stone. Billy thought to himself in annoyance at the still completely mobile, stone knight. Not that it was easy to tell with all of the golden sparkles from the constant heal spells the both of them were being hit with. He had to admit the black knight hits hard. Billy had been forced to take a kick or a punch many times in this fight because if he evaded them he would be hit by the hammer. He could only hope that the battle between keepers ends in his favor soon or who knows how long this will last. That hope, however, was smashed in the face when there was a flash of light and a familiar sound coming from right behind him. He didn't need to turn around to know what was back there. The powerful cold washing over him like a hoard of ghosts was all he needed.

"Last one." The haunting voice of the undead was heard for the first time before the mace came down. The earth shook, a cloud of dust flew up, but when it cleared, Billy was gone.

I gave a sigh at the battle that just took place. I was hoping that the reverse mote would be full before we were noticed. My attention was turned the other princesses who were coming in after making their preparations. First to enter was Cadence, followed shortly by Luna and finally Celestia and Twilight came in together... wait.

"Un... explanation please?" I ask concerning the others coming in. It was Twilight's friends. And every single one was an alicorn.

"Well... it was Dr. Wolf. He managed to find a displaced that can either make or got his hand on, divine aspects. Though some of them are... well let me make the introductions. This is Applejack, princess of the harvest." Applejack looked uncomfortable but gave me a tip of her hat in greeting. "Rarity, princess of fabulosity." Rarity gave me a curtsy while I was fighting not to laugh. "Pinkie Pie, princess of parties and cake." Was that, jealousy I heard in her voice? "Rainbow Dash, princess of storms." The rainbow pegasus just gave a pose like she was a war hero. "And Fluttershy princess of apologies."

"I'm sorry," Fluttershy said while trying to hide behind her main.

"Oh, and there was something for you," Celestia said as she took out a white coin with the number 13 on it.

"...Celestia... is that an elevator button?" I ask in a deadpan. She was about to answer but before she could get a word out the button shot out of Celestia's magical grip on its own and flew right at me. "Nooooooooooooooo!" I cry out as I take off around the room, the dreaded button hot on my trail. Unfortunately, my lack of cardio had finally come up to get me in the ass. I was panting for breath when the button caught up to me and entered my body... through the back door. As I lay there with my poor tushie in the air I hear Luna ask a question that fills me with dread.

"Think this is a bad time to tell her about the aspect of treasure?"

Eyes widening in horror I turn my head just in time to see a flying treasure chest coming at me from behind.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHSnvU3yxg4