Welcome to the latest thread of Occupied Equestria. Set six years after season 6, it presents an alternative history where Chrysalis chose a different approach to her second attack on Equestria. The Changelings have conquered half of Equestria, while an Equestrian splinter colony - soured to Princesses notion of harmony with all creatures thank to their dealing with griffins - Invaded and took the other half. In Baltimare and the Equestruan Southlands, the magic of friendship has weakened, as Communists, Changeling infiltrators, Fascists, gangs, and even ancient necormancers and dark gods threaten the city and the surrounding regions. This role play is based in large part upon the Equestria at War mod for Hearts of Iron 4, and uses D&d 3.5e mechanics.
In the latest episode, we are starting day 4. Ash is finally getting to sleep after dealing with foals that scarified animals to evil gods, Iron is disappointed to find that the only sex he is getting is in his dreams, Dark Star has declined to have sex, Onxy has discovered the joys of socialized medicine, I don’t know what Spark is doing, and Silver has discovered that when you don’t complete a quest, you don’t get paid for it
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>>80901Sister Ash immediately gets to work, setting the remains alight and sweeping them into the well.
>>80902She then searches the room for anything else in need of reposition.
>>80902>>80893>>80851"What the buck was that?"
>>80903Iron helps Ash with this process.
Hmmm... A little too easy even with added HP. I guess I can either just send more monsters, or start sending the "the monster has looked at you. Roll fortitude save to not die. It makes a touch attack, roll fortitude save not to die" monsters that are 2/3 of the undead
>>80903More soul jars for the jar god, it seems
>>80902>>80904Silver trots up to the burning pieces of the skeleton as they're cast into the well. "That...that was chimera...undead chimera..." He seems fairly shocked at what he just witnessed, turning to his companions as if looking for answers to unasked questions. Only one manages to escape. "...they can come in undead form?"
>>80904Something soft rubs up against dark Star's side
>>80906Sister Ash sighs, and gets to work bringing the jars outside.
In a minute or so, she'd be back.
Onyx should have recovered 15 hp.
>>80907"Most things can be made undead."Sister Ash says
"It just matters what the caster could get his hooves on."
>>80904Iron pants a bit, adrenaline maxed out. "Whew, I think it was a big skeleton with 4 or 5 heads. I did not see perfectly behind the shield."
>>80909Iron decides to help out Ash as he needs some steam to blow off after that terrifying creature with some hauling. Good thing the armor stood between him and that beast.
>>80907"it would appear so."
>>80908Dark Star looks at what it is
in case its not blue >>80910>>80912"I did not even think chimeras really existed...I thought they were just foal's tales, kind used to scare young foals before bedtime. And yet, here we are, burning remains of chimera skeleton..." Silver sits down, flabbergasted. "...This is it. This is officially strangest thing I have seen or will ever see in my entire life. This is it, right here..."
>>80912It is indeed Blue Skies
"Are you okay Dark Star? I heard something"
>>80913"Oh they are all too real"
>>80913"Why? Why do ponies keep saying things like that?"
Here's something to sink in. We dealt 93 damage against that creature.>>80916"Onyx has been wounded but Ash has put some spell to regenerate his flesh back, so he should be fine. Keep an eye on him. I can spare some healing potions for the stallion if it is needed." Iron says while helping Ash's job.
>>80915Silver sends up a silent prayer to Celestia that he's not had the misfortune to meet one on his own.
>>80917He is absolutely shocked at the premise that anypony would not find this strange. "THIS is not weird to you?"
>>80914"Yea i'm fine. there was a manticore skeleton."
After Sister Ash finishes removing the jars, she turns her attention to the next room.
>>80921Iron stands besides her. "Be careful." He whispers to Ash.
>>80920"Well, shall we return to work. You found a book?"
>>80923There's only one door left, right?
>>80918"alright. lets get him patched up as soon as possible."
>>80923"yea i did."
Dark Star looks at the book
>>80919"It is weird. It doesn't change that fact that you are just asking to find something worse. If a thing like that is walking around, it stands to reason that there is far worse ahead in the center of this place."
>>80925"Here. Have a small healing potion." He hands it over to Star. "Ash should have done most of the job already."
>>80924On that side, yes. Also blocked
>>80925Rather thick, this one seems, shall we say, consequential, and has a letter at the beginning
>>80926This quiets Silver. He holds his head low as he trots over to Blue Skies and Dark Star.
>>80928Sister Ash sets the door alight with her ability.
>>80930Iron drinks a barkflesh +2 on his inventory, readying himself for a fight.
>>80929I follow Silver.
"I don't mean disrespect. I'm just trying to state the facts. We can't let our guard down."
>>80929Blue Skies looks very pleased as Dark Star examines the book that was in the cavity
>>80934"I know, and I am not. It is just difficult to imagine something more strange than undead chimera."
>>80925>>80935"So, that book. What does it say?"
>>80930Sister Ash watches the hole in the door grow as it burns, taking the total defense standard action to gaurd against whatever is roused by the fire.
>>80927"alright ill give it to him."
>>80928Dark Star reads it
>>80937Iron also awaits, feeling the barkskin potion do its effect.
>>80936>>80938This appears at the opening, first page, essentially a forward to a longer work
I write this to you, my beloved wife Wood Hill, for though you shall never read it, I hope someday to speak these words to you in person, as they shall explain my next endeavor in life.
It has been seven years now since the plague took you from my arms, as well as little Whinny, Petra, High Sails, and East Wind. I spent that next year unable to leave my room in the old and empty mansion by the shore. I let your father’s business go idle, and left the sea captains unmanaged in my despair. I needed to leave the place where my suffering had occurred. So I traveled across the world on a swift clipper. And in those years of travel, I learned powerful ancient wisdom from the cults of Zebrica and the dark halls of Northern Griffonia. The sight of corpses being stacked 20 high on the streets of Baltimare during the darkest days of the plague of ’47 is and shall forever be burned upon my mind, no more to be erased than your own precious face. I want you to know that though I may have retaken the reins at the head of your father’s business, I have by no means abandoned you nor the foals. Between the alchemy of the Zebras and the arcane necromancy of the North, I have found that there is a way I shall see you again. The veil of death shall be torn down and our world reunited as one. Death itself shall yield when I have perfected my process. I will see you again.
With an undying love,
Joseph Curwhinny
March 3, 754
>>80937This one too, has a sealed well. Entirely sealed
\r
>>80940Dark Star reads this aloud to the party. and when he reads about the zebra cults and the griffion rabbis he looks disgusted
>>80940"..." Silver looks stunned, upon reading the text in full. Something about it has obviously struck home with the older unicorn. He's gone completely quiet, and from the looks of his eyes, he's become lost in a memory of his.
[1d20+5 = 13][1d20+5 = 15]>>80941Sister Ash examines the seal.
Listen checks
>>80943Blue skies pets his back gently, and comes closer.
"You loved somepony, didn't you?"
>>80944Yep. More sealed evil in a pit
>>80944"Are you going to do the wood trick again?" Iron looks at Ash.
>>80945His head weakly nods, still in a trance-like state.
>>80947"Tell me about her"
Hoof still on his back, a little closer, like she seems to be hoping he will confide in her
>>80942"To be destroyed, have faith"
>>80946"... Possibly.." the Sister replies, as she examines the well.
>>80945Sister Ash sears a hole in the wood, and does her burnimg trick again.
>>80952Basically pic related, but older, blue hair, and a bluish tint on her white coat
Okay, it's 1:4, and I'm still sick. I need to sleep.
Goodnight, Anons.
>>80948"Her name was Storm Warning...and she was everything to me." With his magic, he pulls out a picture. It's old, taken at a time when photography was still a relatively new technology, but it is still well preserved, as if it's his most treasured possession.
It's a family picture. On the left is a much younger Silver, in his mid 30s, wearing an old Equestrian military uniform with a lightly-weathered cuirass worn over it. On the right, a pegasus mare, around the same age as Silver, with blown-back hair and an obvious lighting-shaped stripe running the length of her hair from front to back. She's wearing a fairly simple dress, with cloud patterns woven into it. The two, rather than looking at the camera, are looking at each other, with quite possibly the most loving gaze Blue has ever seen. And in front of the pair, are three foals: a teenaged pegasus colt, a young pegasus colt, and a young unicorn filly, all smiling happily and looking at the camera.
>>80955Blue Skies takes an
Intense interest in this photo, coming closer still, but at least she's not touching him save one hoof
"What was it you loved most about her?"
>>80958Indeed, something like that is under Dark Star's hoof
>>80955>All this race-mixing Silver.exe has stopped working
>>80957"What is there for me to say about her that has not already been said? She was...beautiful, in more ways than just her physical beauty. She was as sky, so full of unmeasured promise, so full of hidden fury, so full of love for those within its embrace. She loved, craved freedom, so much like wild wind she was. For her to give it up to anypony was sign of her greatest trust and admiration. She gave it up to me, in her weakest, most vulnerable moment. She trusted me with her freedom, with her life. I took it, and made promise to always be by her side. To protect her whenever I could. We fought thousand gauntlets together, hoof-in-hoof, back-to-back. And we survived it all, because we worked better together than either of us did alone. We saw each other as none others had seen us. We understood each other, at deepest level. She was happy. She was insecure. She was angry. She was caring. She was understanding. She was...
He puts a hoof against the photo, holding it on his lost love. "And she was unafraid of everything, finding joy in darkest places. Death could stare her in face and she would laugh. She would happily face him to protect those she cared about. She did, as it turns out, before her end..."
>>80963"She sounds like she was a wonderful pony."
Dark star puts one of his hoof on his shoulder
>>80963She places a hoof on Silver's hoof on the photo, and comes fairly close with her mouth open ever so slightly, before telling him
"If I can rekindle just a little bit of that love you have for her now, then she isn't really gone. We live on in the hearts of those we touch and those we effect. And it seems to me that I can still feel her warmth in you"
>>80963Great writing. Excellent work.
The sorcerer's ears droop. He doesn't know what to say in this situation however, so remains silent and avoids direct eye contact.
>>80965"Thank you, my friend, but my words could never do her justice she so properly deserves."
>>80966Silver smiles slightly at this. "As long as I live, that warmth will live on. She completed me, when I did not even know I was not whole. Even as she is long dead, and cold in ground, I still go on with warmth she gave to me, and I shall carry that warmth to my grave. Until day we meet once more, and once again embrace each other into forever..."
>>80968Her eyes widen and mouth hangs slightly open. Silver might even think she was going to kiss him, until she doesn't
"Until you meet again. United in love, for not even in death does it the bond end. Together forever"
>>80968Dark Star pats his back
"you'll see her again,but until then we have to kill these undead so nopony gets hurt."
>>80969>>80970He nods. He has no tears, happy, sad, or otherwise. All of the tears he could have spent have been spent for a very long time. He puts the picture away, in a special pocket in his bags that, for a brief moment, both Dark Star and Blue Skies see contains other photos. "Right. We have job to do."
>>80971>>80970Blue's eyes and ears droop
>>80971>>80972Dark Star looks a bit sad
>>80972Now it's Silver's turn to pat Star and Skies on the back. "Perhaps I will tell more stories of her, after mission. It will be good, to share memories of her, after so long. She would enjoy it."
>>80973As she looks up with envious eyes, she says to Dark Star "May I have the book?"
>>80976"Sure."
Dark Star hands the book over
>>80974*Pony head is pat, and an ear wiggles*
>>80977She looks through it, skimming pages, and then places it in the bag
"Well, there is more here, I am sure"
>>80978Silver looks to see if Skies still has Joseph Curwhinny's notes.
>>80979Something like the pic, although I can't say for sure if it is to scale, as I think Ash found more rooms than that, like 5 rooms on that hallway in total
>>80980She presumably still has them
>>80981Dark Star looks down the separate hallway
>>80982Silver follows, keeping his rifle ready in case they get attacked.
>>80981"So, what exactly will you do with all these books once we are outside, Skies?"
>>80982Extends at least another 30 feet
>>80983"Consider them 'loot.'"
>>80984Dark Star shines his flashlight down the hallway
>>80986At the very end of his light range, he can see a wall. Tentatively, it looks as if the design of the catacombs is more or less symmetrical
[1d20+7 = 16]>>80987Spot check to find any items or hidden doors
>>80988Oh the ground in the hallway, near the end, another skeleton. Hat, very faded leather jacket, musket
>>80989Any emblems or distinguishing marks?
>>80989"Must have been part of vigilante group, like one back in other hallway."
>>80991>>80990The hat seems to suggest colonial militia. No other marks
>>80991"Probably all the same group. I wonder if Curwhinny could control these things he brought back"
>>80992"It depends on how much necromantic knowledge and power he acquired, I would suppose."
>>80991>>80992"Well it looks like we've reached a dead end."
>>80994"Then that means we are one more step towards clearing this place." Silver trots up to the skeleton, seeing if he had anything on him when he died.
>>80995Jacket, hat, musket, but nothing else. The pony's bones are broken in some areas and scraped in others. He was facing this new hallway
>>80996"Hmm...does anypony else find these deaths odd? Did chimera skeleton cause this? Or was it something else."
>>80997"i would wager this was caused in some way by curwhinny."
>>80997"Well, it looks like they all died in the same incident"
>>80998"That's a pretty fair wager to make"
>>80999"And why did this one die facing wall..." Silver taps on the wall to see if it's solid or hollow on the other side.
>>81001Oh no, it didn't die facing a wall per se, it died facing a hallway like the one on the other side. There's a large hallway at the end of the minor hall