All things accounted for, Roberto ought to count himself pretty well set with the post-Event world. From a shipboard secretary who worked around the clock getting through red tape, he had become some weird amalgam of a spook and IT guy with but a fraction of the paperwork and a lot more leeway than he could ever hope for.

He still had to deal with the servers’ hardware on board, but that never took up much of his time.

What did was all the data he had to wade through and sort for their intel files. That… he might need to find a librarian or something at one point or another.Database management wasn’t his forte, and adding folders upon folders to sort that stuff was getting old real quick.

At this point, the black-furred Abyssinian with the crooked ear was pretty sure he was the only one who could reliably navigate the cluttered menus and obscure folders.

Hence: he really needed to sort out that mess at some point.

Not now though. Now was on with the best part of his job. Surveying new colonies.

Felt like being some kind of explorer.

He had left Amandine to meet up with Alejandro at the exit of the cruise terminal where the hyacinth macaw was chatting with one of the locals. There was still a little crowd gathered around them, but most had already gone back to their own affairs once they realized the sailors were still setting up. There would come another day to exchange stuff and trade, the fleet had just arrived after all.

“Hi Chief, got word that I was needed to work my miracles.” He greeted him.

“Miracles? What, you’re a cleric now?” Alejandro joked before he waved his talons over to the other parrot who was still leaning against his car. “This is Eduardo Quiros. Local leader. Had a chat with him, he’ll show us around, explain what they got going and what they don’t.”

“Greetings.” Roberto held out a paw for Quiros to shake. “Me llamo Roberto Costa. Sorry but that’s about all the Spanish I know. Mind doing the translation, Chief?”

“That’s what I’m here for.” He folded his arms resignedly and shook his head. “He’s the guy that’s going to figure out how we can help you set up the colony and make exports. You good to go?”

Quiros nodded curtly, the parrot turning around and sliding in the driver’s seat of his pink ‘57 Bel Air before he beckoned them in with a wave of his talons. It was only after he turned the ignition that it became clear the car only looked pristine, because the rumble coming from under the hood definitely didn’t match what the two sailors expected of the American straight-six it was supposed to have.

Visually though… it certainly was well maintained. The white leathers and chromes were in pristine condition for their age, and there was this tacky collection of bobbleheads lining the dashboard. Plus the colorful streamers lining the ceiling.
“Family taxi. Passed down from my grandfather who got it before the embargo.” Quiros told them. “She’s… moody at the best of times. Not made to leave the city. The engine is capricious, and the steering and brakes aren’t what they used to be, but it’s good enough for urban driving and she’s all about looks anyway.” He went on as they left the cruise terminal behind.

Neither Alej’ nor Roberto were geared for a long expedition, both only wearing a flak jackets with only the front plates and pistols, but they figured if worse came to worst (because of monsters, they really doubted anything bad would come out of the locals) they could always make a run for it by using the urban landscape at their advantage. Alej’ could fly in short bursts, and Roberto had that feline agility all Abyssinians benefited from.

“Say Roberto...” Alej’ eventually broke the silence while Quiros drove them to his colony. “I never bothered to ask, but what kind of cat are you?”

“Black cat with white spots.” Roberto smiled. “Do you need glasses, Chief?”

The squawk of frustration that escaped his beak was enough to elicit a chuckle from the Italian, much to Quiros’ confusion in the front. The local threw them a questioning look through the rearview mirror, only to be waved off by Alejandro who muttered something about bromas.

“I meant, what kind of uh… magic you got. You know, how you cats can be either empaths or prescients. I already know Nguyen is a prescient, so what are you?”

“Empath.” Rob’ filled in, looking out the window at the decrepit streets of Havana. “Makes it easy to get under people’s skin… you should see Rahul. Poor cook pup, I’m all over him in our verbal jousting.”

“And he doesn’t mind?”

Roberto’s ear twitched, seemingly catching the sound of the packs of dogs that roamed the city, off in the distance.

“It’s a game Chief, nothing more. I don’t dislike him personally. Never have. And with the empath thing I’m positive he doesn’t dislike me either.”
“It tells you a lot?”

“Yes and no.” The humanoid cat made a face, only just stopping himself from clawing at the taxi’s upholstery. “Takes practice. The more I know a person, the better I can gauge them. Complete foreigners like the Americans in Savannah, I just get a vague idea of their mental state, how they’re feeling. Then...” He shrugged. “… Practice makes perfect. After a while, you get an idea of what you ought to say depending on someone’s state of mind. It’s only really annoying when you’re in overload or you catch a whiff of emotions you’d rather not.”

“You can’t shut them out?”

“Only if I actively focus on that. It’s… disagreeable at times when someone is injured or I catch a feel of something private.” He threw his superior a pointed look. “Thin walls, you get?”

“Oh...” Alejandro blinked. “Must get old real quick.”

“You don’t fucking say.” Rob’ snorted.

Quiros took them west, deeper inside the city. Most of the streets were eerily deserted, just dusty corridors through which a sea breeze carried the trash left in the open whenever those roving dogs knocked garbage cans over. Old wrappers and papers mixed themselves with dust whenever a gust kicked through a street.

It wasn’t that Havana didn’t have parks, it was more that what parks could be found in the city were more like paved plazas with a couple palm trees surrounding them rather than actual parks with lawns and greenery. Decent for a marketplace, but not something you can make a garden out of.

Roberto pulled out his notebook and began taking notes, quickly throwing out some general questions for Alejandro to translate. Stuff he needed to know, the resources available, the manpower, the possibilities.

How many people did they have available? Just short of a hundred, evenly balanced between parrots and hippogriffs. Without counting the tourists. By Quiros’ reckoning, they had around two dozen of them from various nations, though assessing where they came from was hazy at the best of times. Some were reindeers, one was a dragon, a couple ponies and other assorted species thrown into the mix.

Now as to where they were, that was a little more complicated. Of all the survivors that called Havana their home, few were willing to move and group up for the sake of safety. That had led to a myriad of blocks of two to four buildings, walled off with junk fences to fend off the dogs, and usually with less than a dozen survivors in each.

Not the most practical of solutions. Blame their stubbornness for that.

Worse even was the limited means of transportation they had available. Cuba already had a limited automobile pool prior to the Event with a poor car-per-inhabitant ratio compared to more developed countries, and most of them disappearing along with their drivers hadn’t helped a bit. The amount of available cars that they could fix was dreadfully limited-

Roberto jotted down a few notes about that. Maybe he could ask Scarface to fix up a truck for them.
– with vehicles that were either cheap Chinese brands, a rare few European cars that were too complicated to reliably fix, the Soviet stuff that dated back from before the nineties (though, thankfully, easy to fix), and the pre-embargo American cars like Quiros’ taxi, cars half-a-century old which said a lot about how careful you needed to be to handle them. And a few of those vehicles had already been dismantled and turned into makeshift generators.

“Isn’t there a power plant somewhere?” Roberto mused aloud.

Was, as Quiros provided after Alej’ translated. There had been an oil-fired plant. Problem was: it had been built near the refinery and the shore tanks in the harbor. Also known as: the blackened ruins on the south-east side of the bay. A few tanks had been spared from the flames thankfully, leaving them with enough low-grade fuel to run generators for a while (provided they didn’t mind cleaning filters every week or so), but the power plant was toast.

Another note: give them an oil recycler. That would stretch their supply and might make up for long supply chains in the future.

“And here we are. Bienvenido al Hotel Gran Caribe Plaza.” Quiros told the two sailors as the taxi took a turn after the capitol building that brought them next to a set of squarish light brown buildings.

Easily among the fanciest the city could offer. Built during the surge of wealth the island had undergone in the early 20th century before Batista was even a thing, the hotel’s architecture matched that of famous european cities such that it wouldn’t have looked out of place in Paris or London while still carrying that distinct colonial tang in the wrought iron railings that lined the balconies, the stark white shutters and the contrast they made with the otherwise ochre tones mixing light brown with faded yellow along the facade. Dark storefronts between the solid grey pillars of the ground floor also denoted its former use as a shopping gallery boasting luxury brands an apocalyptic economy didn’t lend itself to anymore.

All in all: a pretty decent place to settle.

And being settled meant that additions had been made to the structure to accommodate the locals. A group of Ornithians noticed them and opened a gate in the junk fence that surrounded the whole block, a mess of corrugated steel, scaffolding, old tires and barbed wire that looked like it had stopped a number of feral dogs already.

“This is one of the good parts of the city. Me and a couple hard working folks felt like it was worth it to use all that luxury space and make something out of it. Lots of room in the basements to store supplies too.” Quiros told them as they passed the gates.

Roberto also took note of the distinct change in crowd as the Bel Air drove past the gates. There were still parrots and hippogriffs, as normal for the city, but now he could also see…

“You gathered the tourists there.” He guessed.

The Cuban didn’t need a translation for that. He just nodded.

Ordinarily, there weren’t that many genuine hotels like this one in Havana. Those that existed were built prior to the rise of Castro like the Gran Caribe, and next to none had been built ever since. Much of the market was handled by small-scale B&B, so most of the tourists had been found wandering the city a bit all over the place, confused.

By common accord between the locals, the Gran Caribe was where they brought them and lumped them onto Quiros by virtue of him being their de-facto colony leader.

He also assumed most of them didn’t feel like dealing with disgruntled foreigners for whom a tropical holiday had turned into nothing short of a waking nightmare. They would see what they could do for them. Would that be enough?

Roberto doubted it.

Ignoring the tourists for a moment, he set his mind on analyzing the premises. There were several monkey bridges and boardwalks linking the rooftops, a means to avoid the dangers of the open streets if you didn’t have a vehicle to take shelter in. Their addition gave the already narrow streets a tentacular vibe that might have felt a little oppressive, were it not for the colorful modifications Ornithians seemingly liked to make to their surroundings: multicolored splashes of paint in varying patterns, facades repainted a bright pink with blotches of cyan, kitsch murals lining the walls of the former shopping gallery as though brown and grey were an affront to parrot-dom in need of a culling.

One thing was for certain: Ornithians really liked their colors.

And were those Christmas streamers? Talk about tacky.

The only thing holding back the multicolored barrage of the parrots was the fact they shared the colony with hippogriffs that had less of a taste for the kitsch, and even then the pastel hues they typically had for coat and plumage tended to make them stand out just as much as their parrot countrymen.

As for the locals standing watch on the junk fence… their uniqueness kept the same trend as Quiros’ fashion sense: Hawaiian shirts and Panama hats had been paired with Soviet equipment in the form of positively ancient leather chest rigs, Makarov pistols and SKS rifles.

Probably police-grade equipment given the country. That, or some ceremonial gear they got from the Capitol, if not reservist weaponry. Roberto wasn’t sure. Old Soviet gear.

Quiros stopped his car in front of the hotel alongside a lone UAZ and an old and battered Kamaz filled with wooden crates, the only vehicles seemingly present around the Gran Caribe. The Bel Air’s patched-up engine came to a stop with a shuddering hiss that made Quiros frown for a brief second before he shrugged and led them into the hotel’s lobby. Much like the exterior, the room was a mix of old luxury and parrot decoration: rich marble flooring and intricate mouldings now shared the space with multicolored streamers and flashy drapes hanging off the ceiling whose fabric hid the supply crates stacked wherever there was room for it.

Not their goal though. Quiros led them to the other side of the room, past the counter and into a little stuffy office which he told them was used for their ‘administration’.

Most of the walls were covered in piles upon piles of cardboard boxes and manilla folders collected from all around town, from the library’s archives to the Capitol itself, in addition to a small computer terminal than ran on Windows 98 which the parrot opened to show them what intel he had gathered on the area.

Alejandro threw his shipmate a side glance.

This was going to take a while.

Back on board of Amandine, Vadim and Micha had taken to doing something that wasn’t about their usual tasks as Officers. It was all about Andy.

The topic had popped up once while Anton was showing Micha the incubator in which she kept her eggs – still a few months before those hatched, too- and they started talking about raising kids and how Andy behaved. Micha had found a sort of kinship with the genderswapped Ukrainian despite being unable to converse with her in anything but English. Each of them had gonethrough a pretty similar experience, so it made it rather easy to break the ice and relate to one another.

Things leapt from one topic to another and eventually the two hens had found themselves talking about education and how they were supposed to make sure kids (was it cubs or fledglings with griffons? You’re never sure if you’re supposed to use avian or feline terminology) were raised properly.

And much as Micha loathed to admit it… Anton had struck a point with their conversation.

You can’t exactly set up a primary school on a cargo ship. Home schooling it was then.

Did any of them have any kind of idea how to go about it? Of course not. Sailors tended to be jack-of-all-trades in a fashion, but never to that point. Needless to say, finding out how to go about the issue had involved a lot of discussing and even outright arguing between her and her mate.

Lighthearted of course. It was more of a heated banter than an actual argument. Mated griffons were unable not to love each other, so it was actually a challenge to stay angry for more than a couple seconds.

A bit concerning at times really, but they had eventually found their solution to the issue.

Subtlety would be their go-to word with teaching Andy. Until they got in contact with a proper teacher at least. Maybe she should ask Sandra? Their radio operator ought to know of a colony with an actual teacher, if only to ask for directions.

Either way...

Young griffons tended to be very outdoorsy kids, wild even at times. Andy was no exception, what with how she liked to play-hunt with her toys and wander around the ship despite their continuous warnings.

But they could be coaxed into learning something with a bit of effort.

Exhibit A: story time. One of the evening rituals Vadim tended to go through with Andy was that he would put her to bed and read her stories – in Polish- to lull her into sleep.

The idea? At regular intervals when the plot picked up and Andy’s attention was at its height, he would… doze off. Or act as if he did that is. The result was immediate: Andy was so intent on finishing the story that she would pick up the book herself and attempt to finish it out of her own interest.

Of course she wasn’t entirely self-taught. Vadim still needed to read aloud for her most of the time and Micha had taken it upon herself to have the fledgling exercise by reading some simpler texts aloud for her adoptive mom… but the seeds were sowed.

And that was just the beginning.

Plus she had managed to snap a neat little photo of Vadim actually snoozing with Andy finishing the read on her own, comfortably nested under his wing.

She would hang it in the office.

Merlin’s Tomb.

For a rather unassuming raised stone in the middle of a clearing, the place unsurprisingly radiated with energy and magic… albeit less so than it had when Starswirl first found it. That was most likely due to him rediscovering and reconnecting with his human soul and removing the area’s main power source. After that, most of the wards protecting the empty shell of a corpse under the stones had just faded away.

Main. There still was power coursing through the area of course, both because of Broceliande and what was left below the raised stone. The artifact. His staff. And of course his corpse.

If a ghost could have a chill run down his spine, he’d have. Casual as he may be about wandering Earth as a ghost – and his other half was still alive back in Equestria-, trotting over your own place of burial wasn’t any less eerie. Particularly when half of your mind still felt very much alive reading off a couple manuscripts deep in the Royal Archives of Equestria.

“Are you alright Mister Merlin?” Martin inquired.

The little fawn stood on his hooves a few steps behind him, looking a bit worse for wear from traveling through the forest. He may be both a deer and a neophyte disciple of Cernunnos such that he should easily traverse woodlands and not be bothered by the many creatures that called Broceliande home…

But he was a fawn. Merlin’s Tomb wasn’t exactly close to Trecesson Castle. Quite the contrary in fact: if you started from the Golden Tree, the Tomb was in the opposite direction you’d normally take to the Castle. Twenty kilometers away too, so it was no surprise Martin would be tired.

“I’m quite fine, thank you. Just an old wizard reminiscing how his life led to...” He waved a translucent hoof at the tomb. “… this. Competent though I like to call myself, that doesn’t change anything to the uniqueness of my condition. Question is: how are you? I’m a ghost, I don’t get tired.”

Martin smiled awkwardly, taking a second to readjust the strap that held his training staff over his back.

A change of attire that had come recently at Meadowbrook’s behest. Unlike modern Equestrians that didn’t have issues with going nude, the Pillars were from a more… prudish time where it was considered normal for ponies to wear something.

History books would have it that it was under Celestia’s prolonged reign as sole Princess and the extended peace that they decided clothes were unnecessary.

She and Rockhoof were from harsher times. They didn’t share the feeling… which accidentally made them get along with standard human customs.

For Martin? From the dirty, tattered clothes he had come to Trecesson with, he had now upgraded (after a little while, good at potions as she was, Meadowbrook was a poor seamstress, so the fawn had spent a fair amount of time in the nude) to clothing worthy of a wizard’s apprentice.

Dark green wool covered his back in the form of a thick hooded cloak above which he carried his staff and a little canvas satchel that contained some gear and basic potions Meadowbrook insisted he carry with him. And a small list of ingredients the mare wanted for her potions, if he ever came across those while out in the forest.

Along with the cloak came a simple white tunic tied up around his midsection and a dark green pointy hat without a brim that denoted his status as a neophyte.

Simple, but it stated his role clearly and provided semi-decent protection against the drizzle that had been raining down upon them since early in the morning. The droplets didn’t even pass through the cloak, a little potion treatment that Meadowbrook had applied to the garment to make it water-repellent.

“It’s a long walk.” Martin finally acknowledged, scraping a hoof against a nearby tree to get rid of the mud that was clinging to it. “But I’m not a little kid anymore!”

“Sure you aren’t.”Starswirl smirked. “Don’t try to hide it. I can read right through you. We will teleport on the way back.”

Martin wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed or relieved at the decision.

Starswirl jerked his head, motioning for his apprentice to follow him to the center of the clearing. Above them, the skies were a uniform shade of light gray that gave the whole forest a dull gloom it didn’t normally have in clear weather. The smell of dirt and soil hung heavy in the air as the sound of the rainfall hitting the canopy battled that of the breeze shaking the branches.

Rockhoof would have a field day about it. The stallion had complained the crops were a bit on the dry side earlier that week… that should hydrate them and fill up all the aquifers.

And naturally the rain couldn’t come normally. This was Broceliande of course. In woods where you could expect anything from a silver mist at ankle height, to glowing moss, bio-luminescence and magical wisps, of course rain had to come with its own local flavor.

The sheer magic in the air was enough to ignite the biggest drops of the drizzle with a blue ethereal light all the way down, like miniature comets that popped and sparkled whenever they hit the ground, a tree, a leaf. Those sparkles would then drift off and form little mist banks that floated for a couple minutes before they scattered between the trees.

With the tomb being so magically-charged and in the middle of a clearing, all those droplets created the illusion of a vortex around the raised stone where they crashed against the small circle of stones embedded in the forest floor around it, forming their mist before the magic in the area pushed them deeper into the woods.

“Beautiful isn’t it?” Starswirl smiled. “Magic works wonders sometimes… this was never intended to be that way, yet the beauty shines through over the gloom of a tomb. You’ve got to appreciate what magic gives you when it deigns to show it Martin. Also… try to commit this to memory. If a place is charged enough with magic, you may not even need mage sight to spot its flow. Small particles can pick it up. Dust. Raindrops. Ashes. Try and keep some on hoof. Might save you from wasting some time and mana on a spell. Understand?”

“Y-yes… I think?” He blinked slowly.

“ It’s important you remember that using human magic will always be more complicated than a unicorn’s sorcery. It’s seldom about throwing your weight around. You’ve got to be clever, use what’s around you to your advantage and have a very good comprehension of how the world functions to make it work.” His teacher recited. “Don’t worry about writing this down. We’ll go over it back at the castle, you’re not good enough yet that I’d ask you to pull out a notebook out in the rain.”

Wait. Implying he eventually would?

Right beside him, Martin watched Starswirl shift to human form, the ghost quietly summoning up an ethereal stool and sitting down, one leg folded over the other, looking expectantly back and forth between his pupil and the tomb.

“Sir?” Martin quirked his head to the side.

“It’s your artifact after all, my dear pupil.”The wizard’s ethereal eyes twinkled in amusement. “Did you actually think I was going to retrieve it for you? All the relevant wards are already down, you don’t need me.”

He jerked his head back towards the raised stone. To a fawn, a huge monolith covered in burned-out runes that was easily half a dozen times his height, probably with a stone slab underneath it that hid his teacher’s corpse itself.

“I don’t think I… that I can… lift that.” He stammered.

What was the heaviest thing he had lifted again? Using his training staff? A pebble.

“Use what’s around you to your advantage. Wits. Not raw power.”Merlin repeated.

Martin tried to discern something in the ghost’s expression, but he just kept grinning and stroking his beard. He furrowed his brows and rounded up on the tomb. So there was a trick. A trick he needed to figure out to lift the stone.

The magically-charged raindrops shimmered as they fell around the tomb.

Oh.

That.

…

Dummy.

Subconsciously, the little fawn’s snout twitched in frustration as he unslung his training staff and tucked it under one of his forehooves, business end pointed towards the stone.

Now how to use all that?

Well… start off easy. He closed his eyes and focused just a second to take hold of his wizard magic, an exercise he’d already done enough while meditating. Easy.

Next up? He worked his jaw in thought.

He could literally see the magic in the air, he just needed to reach out with his own and leech off of it to boost his own spells. Maybe… he steered his own magic into his staff and used it to ‘grab’ the surrounding mana flowing through the air to pull it into himself.

All of a sudden, it felt like he was chewing on a live wire. The inscribings on his staff and his eyes lit up with a white glow and his thought process felt as if it had been sped up twofold.

Merlin quirked an eyebrow at the display, still stroking his beard but this time in wonder at what it was his student was attempting.

“I- I got t-this.” He forced out, teeth chattering from the raw power.

Now that he had the power… he just needed to… gah, too much energy… hard to focus. He rerouted his wizard magic through the staff once more, except this time he repeated what he had done in training for telekinesis: send out a tendril of magic, like an invisible arm, wrap around the raised stone…

Huh. Neat. All those burned out runes carved in the stones actually felt like grooves his magic could anchor to. Made it easier to grab it. Guess Merlin meant what he was saying in more ways than just the extra magic available.

Martin was grinning when the stone came lifted off, encased in a powerful white aura. He effortlessly floated it aside, almost giddy at how easy it was to lift the multi-ton rock with the extra magic.

What he didn’t see was Merlin counting down on his fingers.

Three.

Two.

One.

Crash!

The white glow of extra magic had faded in a fraction of a second, leaving him with just his baseline power that had yet to grow powerful enough to lift Menhirs. His telekinetic grip slipped, and the old stone crashed down with a tremor that sent moss and leaves flying up in the air.

“Whoops...” Martin said sheepishly.

“Al-right...” Merlin slowly said, shifting back to unicorn form as his stool disappeared. “That was decent. Not perfect, but were you a regular Canterlot student that would be enough to pass the entrance examination.”

A tentative smile crept up the fawn’s muzzle.

“But there is room for improvement. I saw you tap into the surrounding magic. This is good, you should get used to doing that whenever you can. What you could have done instead of swallowing it up like that, was just create a flow. Smoothly. Let it go through you.”

“Through me?”

“Yes. What happened here is not only that what you took in was limited, but it also brought you close to your overload point. This will grow eventually, but do you remember how it felt? Getting too close to your limit… it feels good, but it’s very dangerous. You can miscast from the decreased focus, grow overconfident, you might even overcharge and blow yourself up.”

“Blow my-” Martin paled under his fur coat.

“I would have stopped you if it got to that point. Don’t worry. Key element today is: you had the right idea using the surrounding magic, but you have to let it flow through, not grab a chunk of it. It’s more complicated than just that of course, but we’ll get into it once we’re back at the castle, OK?”

His pupil nodded.

“Good. Now there’s a time to try that again.” Starswirl waved a hoof at the slab that had been unveiled after the removal of the menhir. “Again. Now with the flow. We’re not leaving until we have that staff.”

It took him a little more time to focus and figure out how to handle the technique, but this time he didn’t drop the massive stone once he ran out of juice. It rose up smoothly in the air, floated off to the side, and then he dropped it in the mud with a wet squelch. A purplish glow immediately began radiating out of the tomb.

The staff. Merlin’s skeleton was still clutching it tightly, a piece of perfectly-straight, polished oak covered in a thin layer of varnish that protected it from wear.

Not that it was really necessary. Artifacts were self-repairing after all. Nevertheless, the varnish gave the wood a fine sheen that covered the shallow carvings that had been inscribed upon it over the year. Multiple scripts covered it: Nordic runes, Celtic ogham,Latin and Greek writings… all covering a shaft that ended in a pair of bronze bits on either end.

One of those extended out further in a claw that grasped at another thing that made the staff so unique. Where other mages would just use a jewel as the artificial foci on their staff – and that was already expensive enough on Earth, diamonds weren’t as plentiful as on Equestria-; Merlin had gone the extra mile when he first made the staff.

Trapped in glass and covered in ink, a fist-sized mana stone was what gave the artifact its power.

Starswirl was about to take the artifact for safekeeping and leave a comment to his visibly giddy apprentice when his eyes flicked to his skeleton’s legs.

Leg.

He could feel the tang of her magic in the air, now that he paid attention.

Morgane.

“Damn witch stole my tibia!”

Gunnar silently cursed himself for thinking the expansion works at the algae farm would be simple. He may be a reindeer that could basically run on thin air and lift stuff with his mind, but that didn’t mean that a whole day of installing new grow nets for the algae wasn’t tiring.

They had been at it the previous day, from sun-up to sun down. Given Narvik’s latitude… that was some serious overtime spent planting spikes in the fjord aboard his sailboat. Plus… even with reindeer fur, the frigid waters still got to you, eventually.

On the bright side, he got paid with a batch of rifle ammo and a price cut on any future feed he bought from the farm. That was nothing to scoff at. And the added output to the farms would allow both the fish farms and his own herd of cattle to grow and expand some more in the future.

Yeah for post-apocalyptic economic growth.

Truthfully, Gunnar would have been happy just mooring his sailboat at the algae farm and sleeping off the overtime there… but he was a farmer. Living your animals on their own is already a gamble with pets, not visiting your cattle for a prolonged time is just playing with fire.

And thus, from overtime at the algae farm, he went on to spending the night refilling the feed and water for all his animals, making sure the reindeer herd was kept in line, that his dog Sitka hadn’t wandered off or something.

Sven of course took his opportunity to complain when he waited until well past noon to call the griffon. So what if he needed to catch up on his sleep? It wasn’t like his mystery mine was going away anytime soon, and there was no way he was sailing out of his fjord without a few hours of sleep.

That and he needed to pick something up at the convergence point for Agmund. The cleric had told him it was important. He frankly didn’t see the use in these stones, but if the dragon did more power to him.

With all the travel time, going to the temple to find Agmund was already up at the station, pay off the marina to keep his boat, and finally fly his way up the mountain; it was only well into the afternoon that Gunnar reached the ski station where two disgruntled companions were waiting for him.

Now in terms of the ski station… Narvik being so far north made it possible for a layout you wouldn’t normally see in common stations across the Alps. In the way that the bottom of the station was basically in town, at sea level where most of the slopes converged.

What they referred to as the ski station was actually at the very top where the chairlift – that nobody bothered to repair since almost everyone could fly anyway- would normally drop its passengers a short distance below the summit, well above the treeline. It was at an altitude where nothing but lichen, moss and hardy bushes would grow above and between the smooth rocks that were nigh-permanently buffeted by winds that threatened to send inattentive flyers off-course.

And next to the chairlift was a lodge with a balcony, built on solid foundations with thick log walls to sustain the winds and weathers that buffeted the mountaintop. As ideal a nesting ground as it could get for a griffon in Narvik, and if Gunnar let his eyes trail towards the summit he could see a few poles that linked the lodge to an antenna.

That and it used to be a high-altitude bar for skiers. The bar was stocked well-enough for its lone inhabitant when he commandeered it.

Sven and Agmund didn’t look too happy when he touched down and they turned away from the griffon’s pickup truck that he used to bring his supplies to the lodge.

“’bout damn time. You have any idea how long we’ve been waiting?” Sven glowered.

“Long enough for me to catch some rest. I have a busy schedule.” Gunnar replied simply. “Don’t act like those algae won’t help the region in the long run.”

“You’re boring.” His friend shook his head. “I give you a mysterious mine to explore… you set your priorities on farming.”

“Boring but practical is my motto.” Gunnar chuckled as he shrugged off some of the bags he had brought along for the expedition. “Mind if I drop off some stuff here? The mine, it’s not too far is it?”

“Fifteen minutes by air if the wind blows right.”

The reindeer nodded softly as he began digging through the gear. He had his bolt-action along, just in case which he slid in a scabbard he carried across his back before he pulled out another gun – his shotgun- which he passed over to Agmund along with a bandolier.

“Here… green shells are 00 buckshot, white shells are slugs, shoot whichever you prefer so long as you don’t flag me.” He told the cleric.

The dragon gingerly accepted the gun, though he still threw the over-under a dubious glance.

“Is that really necessary?”

“Look, I don’t know what kind of punch you pack with your magic or how quick you run out of juice, mister walking flamethrower. The 12 gauge is my security.” Gunnar deadpanned while he and Agmund were momentarily left alone as Sven went to fetch his own gun and gear.

“If you insist.” The cleric of Thor shrugged, the gesture only then making Gunnar notice how the dragon was affected by his status.

You wouldn’t notice it from up close, but there was more to his position than magic and neat robes. There was a thin layer of crackling electricity over the membrane of his wings, the blood vessels in them shining with a barely noticeable blue glow.

His eyes were similar: outwardly yellow, but with an electric radiance from up close that you wouldn’t normally notice at the temple.

“Now if you don’t mind, there was this one thing I asked of you.” Agmund pressed.

“Yes of course.” Gunnar remembered, turning on his hooves towards his bag and grabbing a small cloth pouch in his telekinesis before tossing it to the dragon. “There you go. Dunno what you need this for.”

Agmund blinked. The miner-turned-cleric quickly shoved his claw down the pouch and pulled out a glowing blue gem.

“Do you even know what these are?” The dragon asked him.

“No clue.”

“They’re mana stones! Pure magic made material!” He exclaimed so loudly it elicited a surprised squawk from Sven as the griffon finally emerged from his lodge. “They’re basically mage fuel, of course I need them. You can do magic dude, did you even try anything with them?”

“Meh, too busy.” Gunnar snorted dismissively.

The cleric looked down at the reindeer for a couple seconds before he shook his head sadly, muttering something under his breath about boneheaded farmers or some such. A guy gets given magic and the ability to interact with his environment without touching it, the ability to run on thin air and fly… and he decides to act so casually about magic.

People sometimes.

Being the former miner that he was, Agmund insisted on giving them a few brief warnings about what they should pay attention inside the… mine while they were on their little expedition. Don’t fire your gun without warning the others to avoid turning anyone deaf, use the explosion-proof flashlights he had brought along, the oxygen meter too…

It was only a quarter of an hour later that they left the lodge behind, much later than Sven would have liked.

Not like he would go out and into the mine on his own anyway. He wasn’t crazy. He had seen those silhouettes wander around the mountainside at night.

Sven’s claim wasn’t wrong. The mine wasn’t far by air. The mountain extended in a ridge behind the ski station, which they followed up until it sloped down into a shallow valley tucked between two peaks. It formed a semi-open cavity deep enough to allow for a small frigid lake surrounded by the thin layer of permafrost found at this altitude.

Behaving much as a guide would, the eagle-owl griffon led them to the circle of standing stones by the lake where he had first spotted the signs of activity, pointing his talons this way and that at the summoning circle and the tracks that littered the area.

Gunnar and Agmund shared a look. This looked like a little crowd had come right through the circle, and the way the area had been disturbed showed they had brought supplies along. Plenty of them by the looks of it… which they had dragged through a narrow path to the side of the valley opposite to the lake.

“You recognize those tracks?” Sven asked them, finally done with his explanations and… wild speculations.

“Not at all.” Agmund shook his head. “I mean… it looks human, but the length-to-width ratio is off. Plus it’s about the size you’d expect from a 10-year-old yet it’s way too deep.”

“On the bright side...” Gunnar looked off towards where he could see a hole in the mountainside which he recognized as the entrance in Sven’s photo. “… whatever came here dragged supplies along. That rules out monsters. My conclusion… is we best go and greet the neighbors. You with me Agmund?”

“Yeah...” The dragon cleric inclined his head sharply. “I second that. Just make sure to keep the guns holstered.”

That much wasn’t really a problem. And neither was getting in. The mine entrance shared the same signs of activity as the standing stones, but it was… odd. It was carved right out of the mountainside, intricately decorated with linear patterns that put emphasis on the smooth gray stonework.

If that wasn’t already out of place on a mine entrance, then the fact the doors were made of the same stone yet opened effortlessly without making a single noise only compounded the fact. A chilly mountain breeze blew across their back the moment the doors came open, a small stone latch locking them into place with a click.

Inside was a dimly lit tunnel that descended into the mountain at an angle, decorated with the same carved patterns as the entrance, with the exception that the lines at head level (for quadrupeds) had been filled in with a squishy phosphorescent substance to provide light, though no brighter than a dim penumbra.

They saw no guard when they passed the doors.

They didn’t see any when the doors faded from sight, deeper into the tunnel.

It was only when Sven turned around to check how far down they had gone that he noticed the beady glowing eyes staring right at their group.

And of course the several crossbows and spears pointed their way.

“Hei kjære naboer.” He greeted sheepishly, the griffon raising his talons in a wave.

Author's Notes:

I'm decently satisfied with the picture I depicted of the cuban colony. More details to come, obviously, but the gist of it is there.

Still... food for thought of the week: the way I went about griffons' (and minotaurs') mating habits was that they pair-bond for life. Now I know it's all romantic and the jazz that comes with it... but what do when issues arise with your mate? Severe stuff I mean. Species without the pair-bonding can just go their own merry way...

Them though? Tough luck.

Oh and of course: three guesses on what's in the mine. First two don't count.