I felt great. It had taken a ton of work, but we were in the land of the Dromaed and on the way to our destination. Finally, we were in the field, out in the wilderness and on the way to our destination. We were following the river inland, and the ponies of our expedition trailed behind me as we followed a path. After all the trouble we’d gone through to get this far, I couldn’t be happier.

Puzzle snorted. “This one has trouble believing how you could possibly have been happy traveling through that jungle. This one certainly didn’t enjoy the heat, humidity, the solid wall of vegetation, or the dangerous fauna and flora.”

Daring smirked and nudged Puzzle. “That’s because you’re a city bug. You have to be willing to rough it if you want to go on a real adventure. Also, I’m pretty sure you guys were doing things the hard way. There’s a reason we stuck to walking by the river. You can follow it, plus there’s usually more animal trails nearby, so less hacking our way through the jungle.”

“True,” Puzzle grumbled. “The Ephemera-mare seemed determined to walk a straight line to her destination, geography be damned.”

“Next thing is that your company sucked,” Daring pointed out. “That’s going to make any trip feel longer and more arduous. I know that from first-hoof experience.”

“Oh!” Kukri smiled up at her idol. “Like when you got captured by Caballeron and made to go through the Maze of Torment?”

“Yeah, being made to go through a big deathtrap by your companions tends to sour the relationship,” Daring confirmed. “And given I worked with Ephemera the one time back before I learned how big of an evil nag she was, I know how much her company sucks. I was nearly to the point of strangling her already even before she stabbed me in the back.”

“That definitely didn’t help,” Puzzle agreed with a sigh. “Still could have gone without the jungle, though.”

“No sense of adventure.” Daring tsked and shook her head. “You gotta learn how to enjoy what you’re experiencing, especially when it’s something new you’ve never done before.”

And I wasn’t the only one enjoying the trip. “Oh bully!” Capital cried as he stared up into the jungle canopy. “Look at those birds there! You see how brightly colored they are? And such a variety as well!”

I looked up and saw the sheer variety of prismatic birds darting between the trees. It was an explosion of diverse life usually only seen in zoos, but instead of being constrained and cordoned off within cages, it was out and about in its natural environment. It was the kind of thing I lived for. If it weren't for the terror birds prowling the skies above the jungle canopy I would have flown right up there and taken a look around. But everything I had read said that was tantamount to suicide, and while I was an adventurous pony, I wasn’t crazy, no matter how often other ponies told me I was nuts.

“That sure is something alright.” I grinned at Capital. “Enjoying yourself?”

“Quite so.” Capital’s face lit up in an enthusiastic smile. “Here we are, exploring distant exotic lands only a few ponies have ever even seen.”

“You'll get no disagreement from me.” I took a moment to stretch before yelling, “We're here, we're really here! Not in the Zihilious yet, but we're close. I can almost taste it.”

Capital nodded. “And it's just a matter of time before we get there. Everything's going just wonderfully.”

Some movement further up the river caught my eye and my smile widened. “And it's about to get better. Check this out!” I ran up a nearby hill with Capital in close pursuit. As we crested the hill we got our first look at one of the sights I had really been looking forward to this whole trip.

Thunder Lizards, a whole herd of them. A pair of them were massive, with long necks that stretched up into the sky, a large body, four stout legs and a tail as long as a good-sized tree. Their bodies alone were as big as a house, and it was almost daunting just how big they were. Walking alongside them were a half dozen relatively smaller specimens, though each was still larger than a carriage. They were also quadrupeds, with thick armored hides running from the back of their heads along their backs to a spiky bulbous tail that looked like it could easily be used as a club. They were working together to get a drink from the river, with some of them standing guard while the others got some water.

Capital gasped as he took them in. “The famous Thunder Lizards. Isn’t it amazing?”

“Definitely.” I pulled out a pair of binoculars from my bag and used them to watch the herd. “Look at them, they're huge. I mean, it's one thing to read about them in a book, but to actually see them in person...”

“No words in a book could do justice to this sight. Though we might want to go around them if we want to continue upriver—we don’t want to spook them, after all.” Capital glanced back at our expedition. “In fact, this might be a good place to take a break. I’m sure everyone would like some time off their hooves, and we can all watch the Thunder Lizards while getting a bite to eat.”

“Probably a good idea. About the last thing I want is to be at the business end of a Thunder Lizard stampede.” None of my books had really said how herbivore Thunder Lizards reacted to ponies, but it was probably best to be careful for the moment. A bad part of me wanted to go right up to them and touch them, but they were animals, and all sorts of bad things could happen if animals that big decided they didn’t like you petting them. Maybe if we were lucky we would get to ask the Dromaed about it. They had domesticated several species of Thunder Lizards, and if we made peaceful contact with them we might be able to get close to their animals. Though that did depend on us getting along with the Dromaed. One step at a time...

As Capital started issuing orders to the ponies in the expedition, something caught my attention. “Hey, look over there!” I darted down the hill toward a pyramid structure that was so overgrown with vegetation I almost overlooked it. A thrill of excitement ran down my spine as I got my first actual opportunity to look at some Dromaedian ruins. I started carefully cutting away the vines and vegetation to get a look at the stone underneath.

“My goodness you're excited!” Capital declared as he ran to catch up with me. He stopped short of the pyramid and all but gaped at it. “But then, I am too. Everything's just looking first rate.”

I finished removing enough of the vegetation to reveal pictograms on the wall that looked like Dromaed engaged in fishing from the river. We were going to need to get a picture of this before we left. “You bet. Everything's going great. Nothing could go—” I grimaced, quickly stopping myself from finishing that statement. Almost instinctively I started looking around for threats. “Probably shouldn't jinx it.”

Capital shook his hoof, lightly scolding. “Now now, let's not spoil the moment.”

“Just saying, this is exactly the type of moment Ephemera would love to ruin. She has a talent for that sort of awful timing.” I growled deep in my throat. “I’ll be working to scavenge some artifacts for museums and then she comes along and makes a mess of anything. Did I tell you about the time she sank the Temple of the Morning Sun into the ocean? Or how because of her the entire collection from Pharaoh Hisan's tomb got dumped into a volcano?”

“Yes, Daring, you have.” Capital clapped my shoulder. “But she's not here to cause any damage right now.”

I grumbled, wiping away vegetation with more effort than technically necessary. “That just means she's causing damage somewhere else. If she's not planning on ambushing us then she's probably making trouble with the locals. Or causing some other disaster like unleashing some imprisoned evil spirit that’ll want to take over the world. Not like she hasn’t done that before.”

“Perhaps, but you can't let her ruin the joy of moments like this.”

“Easier said than done.” I started ripping away vines to reveal more of the wall. “But just thinking about her ruins my mood. She's bad news, you have to know that by now. And she’s out there, somewhere.”

“Of course I do, but letting her destroy your happiness just gives her another victory,” Capital said. “As my father says, if you let your opponents control your happiness they’ll never let you crack a smile.”

I groaned and took off my hat as I wiped perspiration from my brow. Capital really wasn’t going to let this go. Worse, he had a point. “I guess. It's just not easy, though, especially when I have to worry about her making a beeline for the City of Giants. We're taking the roundabout route so we can ask the Green Seers if we can go to Zihilius legit, but Ephemera won't care what they think. She's going to get ahead of us because we have to play nice with the locals, I just know it.”

Capital hummed and tapped his chin. “And how badly do you think that's likely to end for her? From everything we’ve heard the Dromaed don’t take kindly to trespassers.”

I shrugged. “Depends on how good they are at keeping ponies out of their forbidden city. Just saying, I’ve gotten into plenty of places people didn’t want me in. And Ephemera always finds a way to be trouble.”

“Still, considering how dangerous the jungle is, I don't think we want to go running around in hostile territory without the locals’ permission,” Capital pointed out. “That’s just asking for trouble.”

I sighed and nodded before returning to my archeological work. “Point. If the rumors about how protective they are of their territory are true, Ephemera's just walked into a world of hurt.”

“So, how is the seed collection going?” this one asked the Alya-mare a couple of days after we had made our deal.

“It’s coming along.” The Alya-mare bottled up seeds from a plant this one wasn’t familiar with. She stood and her gaze swept over the meadow around us. “I just need to find a few more samples of ulthua root.”

“Alright then, do what you need to.” This one shrugged and kept watch over the local area as she searched. We weren’t that far from the evening camp, but in the jungle it was still far enough to warrant caution. Many of the Ephemera-mare’s goons hadn’t taken due precautions when wandering the jungle and had just never came back. It was making everyone edgy. That in turn was crimping this one’s feeding. The Ephemera-mare had ended up setting a couple of traps for this one, mainly by sending one of her goons to try and attract this one while others laid in ambush. Not being an idiot, this one had failed to make an appearance for the obvious traps. This one hoped they would all calm down soon and give this one some easier opportunities to feed. No one could maintain such a high level of alertness forever, and it was only a matter of time before other matters would start pressing.

Though what was really crimping this one’s movements was staying near the Alya-mare. This one had indeed offended all of the Ephemera-mare’s help by spoiling their fun, with none of them willing to speak to this one afterwards. It had become a matter of us versus them, extra contract hires versus regular employees. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that some of the Ephemera-mare’s goons might seek some revenge, and the two of us separating would be seen as an opportunity to attack. Thus we had stuck close to each other for mutual safety.

The Alya-mare found another one of her roots and started digging. “So, you’re from Freeport?” she asked conversationally. Little surprise when we were the only real company each other had that she was going to want to socialize.

This one leaned against a nearby tree, its trunk wide around as some houses and its branches towering far over this one's head. It seemed best to answer her questions sincerely enough as long as they didn’t probe too deeply. “Born and bred.”

“So how did you come all the way to Port Nowhere?” she asked, grunting as she pulled the root up. “I’m not under the impression you were hired like the rest of Ephemera’s ... help.”

This one sighed, already not particularly liking this line of questioning. “I was between jobs. I fell out with my previous employer and ended up in Nowhere, so I took the first profitable job I could that would get me out of there.”

“And I see you’ve come to regret those decisions.” The Alya-mare straightened her glasses as she looked up at me. “Or at least that’s been my impression from your conversations with her.”

“She’s petty, vindictive, short-sighted, of questionable intelligence, and just not the type of person I want to be working for,” this one confirmed. “As soon as I’ve got my pay I’m heading to the Zebrican Empire. There’ll be better opportunities there.”

“I can’t disagree with you.” She signed wistfully. “I miss home. I’ve always wanted to go on a grand adventure, but ever since I left and found myself here I can’t wait to go back.”

This one chuckled. “Isn’t that the way of it? You don’t realize what you have until you lose it.” Admittedly, this one missed its home too. Even if the memories of Freeport created a fresh stab of anger.

The Alya-mare finished harvesting the root and bottling it before dropping it into her bags. “And what about you? Don’t you want to return home?”

This one shrugged. “Maybe someday.” In truth, this one wasn’t sure it would ever be able to return to Freeport. With all the enemies this one had, it might very well be suicide to go back. That was a nice and depressing thought. “So what are your plans for when you get back home? Any of them change with your new experiences?”

The Alya-mare let out a long sigh. “After this job I was hoping to have the coin to buy myself a merchant ship, sailing the world while making a profit. Now... I’m not so sure about that.”

“There’s always setting up shop on land,” this one suggested. “Nothing wrong with setting up in a local market if you know what you’re doing.”

She frowned as she started looking for another root. “Maybe. It’s an option at least. I’ll decide once I’m out of this mess. I’m sure my relatives will have all sorts of ideas of what I can do with my money then.” Her head tilted to look at me. “And what about you? What are you going to do, find a new employer?”

My ear flicked. “I’m not really sure, honestly. I can’t say that working for others has particularly worked out for me lately.”

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right employer?” the Alya-mare suggested. “Why did you quit your last job?”

This one grunted. “Lack of advancement opportunities.”

“Well isn’t that vague and mysterious,” I said. “Mind elaborating?”

Puzzle rolled his eyes. “All in good time.”

Daring snorted. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to let him get out of revealing all his deep, dark, terrible secrets.”

“Everyone wants to know this one’s secrets,” Puzzle grumbled.

“Because you’re a big mysterious guy,” I told him. “You know just about everything about me, but I hardly know anything about you. And so far this has been pretty interesting.”

“So let this one continue.”

“I can understand that.” The Alya-mare started leading the way back to the camp. “Though I do have to wonder what your previous occupation was. You don’t exactly have what I would consider a standard skillset.”

This one decided to go with something close to the truth as we approached the camp. “I was something of a problem solver. Dealing with various problems that came up for my employer.”

“Yeah, like what?”

This one was about to answer when it was interrupted by a high-pitched scream from the other side of camp. Soon several goons in the camp were running the way we had come, wild, wide-eyed terror twisting their faces.

The Alya-mare’s head swiveled as she tried to watch the entire flow of goons stream past us. “What should we do?”

“Let me see what’s going on.” This one took to the air, minding the low hanging branches.

It didn’t take this one long to discover what was causing the uproar. The camp was being invaded by massive bug-like creatures—at least a dozen of them, each roughly twice as long as a pony, and vaguely reminiscent of centipedes as they scurried along on their many legs. Though the long plates running down their backs mostly obscured those legs, they definitely didn’t hide the pincered jaws.

“That’d be the arthropleuras,” Daring informed us. “Or ‘scurriers’ to the laymare. They’re a nasty group of omnivores prone to attacking anything that comes into their territory en masse.”

One of the goons slower to identify the threat screamed as he was overtaken by one of the pseudo-centipedes. It quickly lunged and bit into him, wrapping its body around his torso to keep him from escaping.

This one darted back down to land where the Alya-mare stood with a hoof ready to pull out one of her potions. “We’re being attacked by a group of some kind of giant centipede,” this one informed her. “Let me pick you up. I can get you up where they can’t get you.”

The Alya-mare’s eyes widened as she saw one of the scurriers move towards us, maw clacking. “Sounds good to me!”

This one scooped her up and rose as quickly as it could. The scurrier drew itself up and snapped at this one, its pincers coming uncomfortably close to this one’s rear leg. This one pumped its wings harder, straining to carry a full-grown mare by itself, until we reached a branch big enough to bear our weight.

The Alya-mare carefully balanced herself on the branch and gulped as she looked down. “We’ve got a problem.” She pointed to where a pair of scurriers were climbing up the tree, their little legs catching and digging into the bark as they propelled themselves up.

This one cursed as it watched them climb. It had hoped the giant bugs would content themselves with chasing the others, but it seemed these predators were a determined lot. This one pulled out one of its daggers and considered its options. “Looks like we might need to fight.”

“I got this.” Before this one could react, the Alya-mare whipped out a bottle from her bags and tossed it down. It struck a scurrier right in the face, and the potion burst into a fireball that disintegrated the top third of the creature. Unfortunately, the explosion also shook the tree and cost both of us our precarious footing. The Alya-mare screeched as she slid off and only barely caught onto the branch at the last second. This one spread its wings to take flight, and as this one dropped it saw the scurrier coming up for it, its jaw snapping.

This one’s options limited, it chose to dive down instead of trying to fly up. The scurrier snapped at this one but it rolled, barely dodging the gaping maw. This one lashed out with its dagger and the blade bit into carapace. The scurrier hissed as ichor pulsed out of the wound. Working to regain altitude, this one saw it had only caused a superficial wound, and the bug was now working its way up to the precariously-positioned Alya-mare.

With basically no time left to stop this threat, this one banked up and flapped its wings as hard as it could to catch up with the scurrier. This one flew up and over the scurrier as it made its final approach to the Alya-mare. She screamed as death came for her and scrambled to pull herself up onto the branch. This one whipped out a tanglehoof bag and tossed it at the scurrier. It hit the scurrier direct in the face, and the adhesive exploded covering its eyes and mouth.

The scurrier thrashed about as it tried to get the adhesive off. Taking advantage of its precarious state, this one dived at the massive bug. It slammed into its middle with this one’s shoulder, the impact causing the creature to lose its grip on the tree. The scurrier fell and hit the ground with a thump. It twisted and convulsed this way and as it suffocated.

A quick circle of the tree confirmed that no more of the scurriers were climbing up, so this one landed back on the branch. The Alya-mare had pulled herself up by then, and was holding a hoof to her chest as she breathed heavily. “That was far too exciting for me. Let's not do that again, okay?”

“I’ll make sure not to schedule fighting any giant bugs in the future,” this one said as it scanned the jungle floor. There were some groups of goons that had formed pockets of resistance, and even picked up weapons to fight the scurriers. But most of the Ephemera-mare’s help had fled or were out of sight. Though there was one group that caught this one’s eye.

The Ephemera-mare and her bodyguards were assaulted by a trio of the scurriers. They had taken position in the middle of the camp, using some crates to cover their backs. The janissaries were making a strong showing of it, darting out to deliver some quick blows to their attackers before dodging back to avoid snapping jaws and protect their charge. They were well coordinated too, each taking turns on attack and defense to hold back the scurriers. So far two of the giant bugs had already been slain, their carapaces cracked in multiple places.

Naturally, the Ephemera-mare held herself with significantly less grace. “Come over here and help me!” she screamed at her goons, or just no one in particular. “I don’t pay you to ru—”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off by her own screeching when a scurrier lunged for her. But one of her bodyguards intercepted it with a shoulder-tackle that sent both to the ground. The giant bug started wrapping itself around the bodyguard as he desperately fought to keep it off of him. This in turn left the Ephemera-mare’s flank dangerously exposed as the remaining free guard tried to keep the other two off of his charge.

The Alya-mare frowned as she watched the scene unfold. “Are we going to do anything?”

This one rubbed its chin and took its time to consider the matter. “No.”

“You sure are a hero, Puzzle,” Daring teased. “Bravely staying on your tree and out of the fight.”

Puzzle grinned at Daring. “This one apologizes for nothing. As was blatantly clear by this point, the Ephemera-mare was not this one’s friend. In fact, we were well on our way to being enemies. If some random wildlife happened to kill the Ephemera-mare at no risk to this one, then this one could live with that.”

Daring hummed unhappily as she crossed her arms. “Still not a great thing to do.”

“And this is why your enemies keep coming back time and again to bother you,” Puzzle said. “You keep pulling their rears out of the fire instead of letting them burn.”

“He’s got a point,” Kukri reluctantly conceded. “You do keep saving your enemies or letting them go at the end of your adventures.”

Daring grunted. “Maybe, but it still doesn’t feel right. I don’t like seeing people die around me.”

Puzzle shrugged. “Better my enemies die than me. The Ephemera-mare had had every opportunity to turn this one into a valuable ally, but instead she kept pushing this one away. In the end, this is very much her fault.”

The Alya-mare frowned, but didn’t say any more on the topic. She probably knew what this one was thinking, even if she wasn’t willing to say it.

As if things weren’t bad enough for the Ephemera-mare, more of the scurriers were closing on their position. The Ephemera-mare saw them too, and with wide-eyes, looked up at this one. “Save me already! Get me up there!”

This one shook its head as it called down to her. “Sorry, I think I sprained my wing getting the two of us up here,” this one lied. “I’d just as likely end up dropping you on your head if I tried.” This one was tempted to do just that on purpose, but then that would be a bit too obvious. There was a big line between killing someone by neglect and killing intentionally on purpose.

“Useless fools!” The Ephemera-mare pulled out her wand and blasted the nearest scurrier as it came for her, sending it flying backwards with green lightning. “Fine, I’ll do everything myself if I have to!”

She levitated several rubies out of her saddlebags and threw them at the encircling scurriers. The fire gems exploded, setting the whole camp ablaze and killing the scurriers in the great conflagration. She had even caught a couple of her goons on fire in the attack, to predictable results. But the scurriers were dead, this one had to admit. And the Ephemera-mare grinned in clear self-satisfaction as she watched everything burn. It made this one wonder what other magical items she had stored away. Another reason to be wary of the mare.

The Ephemera-mare’s bodyguards had even managed to finish off the scurriers they had been fighting, and near as this one could tell, all the blood on them belonged to their opponents. It seemed they did indeed know how to fight. Another problem for down the road.

“Oh no,” the Alya-mare said with sudden dread. “Our supplies...” She pointed to the edge of the camp where one of the fire gems had landed—right in the middle of a great deal of the supplies we had brought for our expedition. In fact, with so much of the camp now on fire, many personal possessions were now going up in flames.

That was bad, really bad.

“That mare is going to get us killed, isn’t she?” the Alya-mare muttered.

This one didn’t answer.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to my editors Chengar Qordath and Comma-Kazie for all their help, and to my pre-readers Brony Writer, wolfstorm56, Trinary, 621Chopsuey, Rodinga, PoisonClaw, and Swiftest for their hard work editing.