"Wow! You're a dragon?"

"You came all the way from the desert?"

"What's it like in the north?"

"Did the savages attack you?"

"Isn't being that close to the Sky King nerve-wracking?"

Myrrh let out a nervous laugh as she piloted the Prowler through the streets of Ser'ka'om, no small amount of ponies stopping to ask them curious questions. As was always the case when she entered a new area, Myrrh had a deep, contradictory mixture of 'I love seeing new things!' and 'something unexpectedly bad is going to happen, I can feel it...' Today, she tried to convince herself the second one was especially untrue. They were staying in the city specifically to be safe from the Sky King. It should have felt safer in the streets. None of the ponies were trying to hurt them and Pinkie wasn't having any of her inclinations...

Myrrh shivered at the thought of Pinkie's strange ability to know things. It was like she could read minds. Like now - she had just looked slightly ashamed of herself!

Myrrh quickly tried to push all conscious thought out of her mind, focusing instead on the scenery of Ser'ka'om. The buildings were a lot more compact than the villages and towns they had been traveling in over the last week or so, even though most were made out of the same simple wood and stone. There were significantly more decorative colors around, usually in the forms of banners draping the buildings. It was here Myrrh finally picked up on the symbol that represented Ser itself - a set of three vertical lines where the middle one was slightly longer than the others. They apparently liked coloring the symbol in any and all colors, though yellow, blue, and gray seemed the most common.

She had a pretty good theory about why that was, but she'd learned long ago not to point cultural things like that out. It could go south really quickly.

In the distance, she could see the three towers that cast immense shadows over the city of Ser'ka'om. The three of them were equal in height and had metallic protrusions that reached toward the area in the center but didn't touch, remaining separate constructions. They matched the three most common colors - blue, yellow, grey. If one could consider metal gray, that was. That tower was particularly shiny... almost hard to look at in the current light.

"I'm going to check out some party avenues!" Pinkie called to Myrrh. "Who wants to come?"

Crypt grunted. Myrrh thought about going with her at first, but closed her mouth before she could let out an affirming noise. You're being stupid, she told herself. Just agree to go. It won't hurt.

Pinkie visibly sighed. "I'll be around." She bounced behind a building, vanishing inexplicably.

Myrrh felt her stomach tie into knots. Upon realizing that she was feeling conflicted, she did what she had taught herself to do in this situation.

Find something to flirt with.

"Heeeeey Crypt!" Myrrh said, winking at him. "While she's off getting so-"

"I haven't said this because she's always around," Crypt said, interrupting her. "She would have chided me for being 'unfair' and 'short'. Well, she's gone, so let me make myself absolutely clear. You are to stop trying to get into any sort of relationship with me. You are not to insinuate that you might be interested. I will actively start humiliating you if you do not cease and desist immediately."

Myrrh's heart caught in her throat. With a reptilian hiss and tears in her eyes, she tore herself out of the Prowler's harness and took to the skies, leaving Crypt alone with the Prowler.

He didn't flinch.

The ponies who had been asking questions and watching closely decided now was a good time to disperse.

"MORE ROOT BEER!" Pinkie shouted, slamming her mug into the counter.

"...Wouldn't you like something... stronger?" the unicorn mare behind the counter asked.

"What? Why would I want anything stronger?" Pinkie laughed. "Then I'd get drunk and that's not really fun!"

"I didn't think you were looking to have fun."

Pinkie flattened her face into the bar countertop. She let out an annoyed moan.

The unicorn mare rolled her eyes and smiled sadly. She got Pinkie another root beer. "Want to talk about it?"

"I'm the most powerful pony in the world and everyone's afraid of me even though I smile all the time, laugh, and... who am I kidding, that sounds too ridiculous."

"...Maybe?"

Pinkie shrugged. "I just need some friends. The ponies I'm traveling with are either secrety-mystery-cryptic or emotionally unstable to the point of hiding behind like three different obvious masks!"

"...How long have you been holding this in?"

"I don't know! A week?" She took a huge swig of the root beer - drinking almost the entire mug in a few seconds. "I've lost my friends, I don't know the land very well, and... and... you know how you never realize something's important until it's gone?"

The unicorn nodded in sympathy. "My son left to find his fortune last year. I get letters every now and then, he's doing pretty well, but I never actually hear from him anymore." She found herself pouring a glass of root beer and taking a sip. "Believe it or not, it's a daily struggl..." Her eyes narrowed and she looked at her root beer in confusion. "This tastes wrong."

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. "Like, spoiled wrong or poisoned wrong?"

"Considering that I feel like passing out, probably the latter." The unicorn's eyes rolled into the back of her skull and she passed out.

Pinkie stared at her in shock - jumping to feel for a pulse. She was still alive, and there wasn't anything erratic happening in her body, so it had probably just been a sleeping drug.

It didn't take Pinkie long to realize they had been trying to drug her.

"Ha! Joke's on you! I'm immune to almost any intoxicant you could throw at me! Years and years and years of eating endless sugar and toxic dishes has given me a-" she yawned "-amazing tolerance for drugs..." Her eyes drooped. "...Ponyfeathers..." She teetered to the edge of her front hooves and fell flat onto the floor.

Then everything went black.

"Excuse me, sir, do you own this machine?" a mare's voice asked.

Crypt looked down at three robed unicorns, their robes so thick and billowing they completely hid everything that wasn't a face. Two mares and a stallion, wearing yellow, gray, and blue respectively.

"It's an acquaintance of mine's," Crypt said. "She'll be back eventually. I'm just watching it for now."

"Then we shall wait for her too."

"She won't want to sell it."

"We are not looking for purchase. We simply wish to know where such fine engineering came from. It is beyond our knowledge, even as the Priesthood of Om."

Crypt shrugged. "Be my guest. I have no idea when she'll be back, so if you're in the mood to wait a while..."