Mid-Spring, 14 of April.

Around a week since the episode in Galena Motel, my men along with the Crystal Army have been ordered to settle down a patrolling schedule around the city, and strict orders to not disturb Mane Shaker or any of his associates, mainly Pinkamena Diane Pie, aka The Cupcake Killer. The other two that were there with them are completely unknown to me and the local army, and there is no clue of their identity in the archives of this city.

Today, I'm writing this in an office, in an "abandoned" house in the Crystal Mountains.
Said house that one of my scouts patrolling outside the city saw a dense cloud of black smoke coming from the mountains, and he came back with the news. I suspected a forest fire, but here, there's barely any trees to burn for what the crystal officers told me.
So I ordered six patrols to gather their equipment and provisions, and I told the Crystal Army officials to remain in the city in case something wicked would happen while I was out. I told the same scout to go ahead of us and come back as soon he would spot anything strange on our way.

With six patrols in my responsibility, the walking there took us a while since none of us knew the area and we lost some time reading the tactical map provided by the Crystal Army archives. We camped by a plateau between two mountains, and even at night, we could see the cloud of smoke in the moonlight.

In the next morning, we woke up with a noise coming echoing from the mountains, sounded like an explosion. Checking the perimeter and mountains around us, we saw nothing, so we quickly lifted camp and moved on.

Finally hiking the ridges, we found our scout sitting next to a colt, wearing what looked like a chef outfit.
He seemed shaken by something, and during question time, he told us that he used to work for Don Topaz!
The same guy which was owner of the wrecked mansion we checked many weeks ago, and under suspicion of contraband of drugs and our weapons. At first, I felt like arresting him, but he was nopony else but a simple cook for his boss... now presumably dead.

My suspicion got even bigger but me and my men dropped our jaws when he told the responsible for wrecking havoc in the place was Mane Shaker, The Last Sombra, according to his description!
I dispatched one of the six patrols to escort the guy back to town, while me and the rest moved on faster than we could in hopes of getting there in time.

But speeding up was a bad idea.
With our armors, backpacks, weapons and hiking a mountain, we got quickly tired and stopped to catch our breath and fill our flasks in a nearby water source pointed in the map. We stood there for a bit, getting the chance to have lunch, our scout came back with alarming news.
He met face to face another scout of a different faction! They didn't fight or anything, but the way they met each other was really close while both crept around the rocks. According to our scout, the other guy didn't say anything and just raised his wings and flew away...
(Note to self: Start creating pegasus scout parties!)

We felt obliged to raise camp again and march on.
Finally, we arrived to the place and seemed like a war zone of some sorts.

The way to the "safe house" was marked by craters around the terrain, with strange iron balls in their center. The gate was open with a huge dent on It and some meters away in the middle of the grass, we saw a pile of bodies burning and spreading the repugnant smell of burned meat.

Whoever was here before us, they left really quickly but I'll admit they did a good job in not letting something stay behind.
The office of this Don Topaz (where I am right now) is gorgeous... and I found a note next to a pair of binoculars. The note was threatening and didn't look like Mane Shaker's handwriting.

Back to the topic, there were pieces of cloth all covered in dried dark red blood, presumably from Mane since his is different from all of us, being a carrier of the "Devil Blood". The bedroom of Don Topaz was turned into some kind of makeshift hospital, where the blankets and sheets had spatters of blood all over, again the same color of Mane's.

Outside the house, we found behind It a huge guy without his eyes and all burned by electrocution! And for what looked like, he was wearing a juggernaut armor!
The way he was killed resembled the way Mane Shaker fought our three juggernauts, but with a major difference, he didn't kill ours. This only gives away that our weapons were not the only ones which secrets were stolen, but also the armor of our high rank elite's!
Even more outside, my men found a weird contraption none of us saw before, ever.

A black iron thick cylinder mounted in a wooden support with wheels on the sides. What..?
I ordered two patrols to make a raid on the office, looking for anything that resembled this thing. And success!
Plans of this artillery weapon cannot be shared and must by kept top-fucking-secret! This is next thing after our balistas and catapults.

It's called "Cannon". It shoots those iron balls at great range and requires a huge load of gunpowder. The thing was facing a chasm so we gave a try, and this thing is loud! The ammunition flew around half kilometer before landing with a loud noise in the distance.
I'm taking these blueprints with me to Canterlot and show them to Dr. Fumes.
I ordered the men to push this new devastating weapon to the chasm so It would be destroyed, nopony else can know of this...

With this, I end this report.
It's the end of the day here and we are camping here with my men guarding the surroundings in shifts.
Tomorrow we will head back to the Crystal Empire and return our normal activity in patrolling the city in search for Mane Shaker and Pinkamena Diane Pie.

Over and out,
Shining Armor, High Official Captain of the Royal Guard.