The Rise of the Windigo King

Upon the flier is a surprisingly well made and seemingly hoof-drawn page as if from a comic book or a manga. The little scene within seems to loosely detail some of the things Aoi said. On the largest panel, Aoi and the rest of the party seem to be lined up heroically against a charging line of windigos while Verana and what you assume to be the windigo King loom over their respective sides. There are some details that strike you as strange though, Aoi's teeth seem to be somewhat more detailed than anypony else's and Healing Torch seems to have a persistent aura of sparkles around him and be drawn in an unusually pretty way. Additionally the image of Verana looming above the party isn't of the ghostly self you're familiar with, but of a flesh and blood representation of her.

The young mare, for her part, takes one look at Aoi and shrieks in terror. "I'm sorry! I'm doing my best!" She yells over her shoulder as she turns to run away again, and promptly runs face first into a china cabinet with an explosion of paper, which rocks back and forth with a heavy wooden creaking sound before promptly tipping over on top of her. Everything is silent for a moment as ponies stare and paper wafts gently down to the ground before you can hear a small voice whining from underneath the upended furniture. "Why does this keep happeeniing~" Along with a few flustered little sobs. "...I think my glasses broke..."

---

The mayor's aide gives a hearty chuckle at the both of you. "Ah yes, I see." A goodly smile across her features even as her horn begins to glow with a golden light. "It's no good making up such tall tales dear, you nearly gave me quite a fright!" When she opens her eyes, themselves glowing golden with her pupils dilated to little pinpricks, and locks them with Torch he feels incapable of looking away as a pressure on the back of his head grows. "Now settle down and behave!" She says as her voice seems to echo around inside his skull.

Meta:

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Desire blinks looking towards Dr. D as he speaks. Dismissing most of what he says as just being two young ponies who don’t get along. “So she’s like a Princess then…?” She asks as she thinks back on her time in the hive and the times she had to interact with the Queen’s brood and their often fragile pride. “I see…”

Clandenstine looks over the flyer intently, then calmly puts it down and looks at the clock on the wall. "Well, looks like it's time for one of my breaks." She remarks, donning a disguise that is basically her normal appearance only with normal pony green eyes and a white coat. "I'll be back in a few!" She says, trotting out of the shop and down the street, out of sight.

Torch feels an unnatural sense of calm wash over him, and he blinks. Oh. THAT spell. Clever. He thinks over the events of the past few minutes, and thinks, Well, THAT would have only ended badly for me, on second thought. Better time and place, I guess. He takes a deep breath, and says, "Well, thanks for that, I guess. Emotions have been running a little high with our hunt for the cultists and all." He smiles, and thinks, I'm not really happy she used a mind magic on me, but it was necessary at the moment.

Aoi scratches her head and then walks over to help the filly get out from under the furniture. "I can certainly see that you are trying your best. Perhaps you should stop running indoors though?" Aoi states with a smile that she hopes looks more friendly than amused.

Ragnarok raises an eyebrow at the aide before shifting her focus toward Torch. " Yes yes. Now we need to be going.." I must remember to have Aoi speak with this one it appears that she is disbelieving of me.

Streetwise:

Torch nods and says, "Yeah, the others must be wondering where we are."

Assist for Streetwise:

Dr Blight wrote:
Desire blinks looking towards Dr. D as he speaks. Dismissing most of what he says as just being two young ponies who don’t get along. “So she’s like a Princess then…?” She asks as she thinks back on her time in the hive and the times she had to interact with the Queen’s brood and their often fragile pride. “I see…”

“Yeeeeeah…” Death Ray shrugged, “That’s about right…”

Pausing, the Doctor gave a kind of grin while wincing at the same time (giving a kind of grince… or a… win – no, probably a grince. Otherwise, it sounded like a good thing). The Doctor grinced at Dream’s mom. “I… uh… guess you can tell I… I really don’t like her too much… the… the Princess... that is…”

Death Ray fell silent for a moment… then suddenly clopped his hooves together, “Soooooo… I… I don’t think I’ve had a chance to thank you for earlier…” The Doctor paused. “-For this morning I mean… or… or was it last night?” He gave an awkward laugh, putting a nervous hoof to his spiky mane, “So… uh - yeah.” He nodded, “Thanks for that. I know you weren’t around when I came too, so I… I just thought I should say thanks. Soooooo... yeah.”

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Back downstairs, GREGG remained at Aoi’s side as she went over to help the purple pony. As the lens of his red eye zoomed in on the overturned cabinet and the pony underneath, he asked, “Are you okay mam?”

The little robot turned back to the Dragonnel before adding, “Do you know this pony, Ms. Aoihime?”

"Yes, we met at the library while your creator was... otherwise occupied. She however neglected to give her name." Aoi replies to GREGG while making a somewhat pointed note at the filly.

"It's quite alright my lad, perfectly understandable! everypony has been rather rattled after the rather grim events of late. Toodle-oo now, stay safe!" She says cheerfully with a wave as you walk away.

You find your way back without too much difficulty, before long you see the familiar uniforms of the changelings as they try to gather business. There's a faint crinkling under your hooves as you find yourselves walking on leaflets strewn haphazardly across the street making a loose trail towards the door of the cafe.

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"My granny used to always say the same thing..." she admits sheepishly. The purple schoolmare surprisingly seems unharmed inspite of what happened, the only sign of the impact being that her glasses have a thick crack spider-webbing through on of the lens and the bridge is crooked. She squints at you as you speak to her before adjusting her glasses and blinking a few times through the broken lens. "I'm fine, this happens a lot...umm... my name is Rough Sketch. Most ponies just call me Sketch...or Doodles...or Four-eyes... Were there always this many of you?"

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Back upstairs, Desire gives an amused chuckle at that. "You two go to such lengths to hide it."She says sarcastically. She tilts her head slightly as he continues and blinks as she realizes what he means. "Ah. Don't mention it. I figured it wouldn't do to just let them drag you into the freezer like some common bum after what you all did for us." She blinks as if realizing something. "Metaphorically of course, we don't actually keep bums in the freezer, it's unhygienic!"She says with a nervous chuckle.

Aoi frowns a bit at the "Four Eyes" thing. "Well, Rough Sketch, perhaps we shall run into one another again, though I do hope not literally. If you need any assistance you may tell those two over there later that they agreed to help you and that I can vouch for it." she says with a playful grin as she indicates the two intoxicated monks, while thinking to herself that having said so publicly that this would lessen the chances that these changelings would step over the line in their feeding. She then nods to Rough Sketch and leaves to regroup with the others.

Ragnarok Pauses to pick up one of the leaflets before turning toward Torch. "We should wait out here for the moment. I do not wish for you to fall to more temptation."

Torch sighs and says, "Look, I'm fine, just a bi-" He stops as he reads the pamphlet, then puts it in his saddlebag and says, "That schoolmare is here! What are the odds! Let's go say hello!" He quickly jogs inside, looking around for the mare.

Perception Check.:

Coming out of the building Aoi spots Torch and Ragnarok, but not the changeling who just left moments ago, and she walks up to them and looks them over and asks, "So what have you two been up to? And where is Lady Verana?"

Ragnarok considers immediately going after Torch but decides to prioritize informing Aoi. "The outcomes of our recent set of events have been mixed to say the least. Some time after your entrance to the cafe we managed to spot a Windigo. Fearing that it would get away should we delay we immediately gave chase. When we caught up to it we found it corrupting a set of Guards. Verana managed to drive it away using up enough energy to force her into a resting sate however the damage was already done the guards and Torch had all been sent into an enraged state against Changelings. I managed to talk down the guards but Torch fled before I could do the same to him. Luckily he does not have very much familiarity with this area so I managed to catch up with him before he could return here. I required some assistance in actually restraining him from one of the mayor's advisers unfortunately he managed to convince her that I was the type of pony that frequently made up stories or some such thing this was after I had attempted to inform her of what was happening. Nevertheless I managed to receive her humor and she managed to remove the hatred that was effecting Torch. May I ask what has happened to you within the Cafe?."

"Hatred inside and out? The Windigo King will be having a field day if this keeps up. Let us just say that I attempted to approach things with a little decorum and diplomacy and that Death Ray was having none of it. The changeling in charge seemed to not appreciate what I would provide their 'not-a-hive' and was similarly rude, so I decided to take my leave of them. Then I encountered Rough Sketch, our purple filly friend from the library, in a similarly chaotic meeting, if at least a much more well intentioned one. Then I decided I should not leave you all out here, especially knowing Torch's feelings about changelings and that one left just before me. Not that she seems to be around now." Aoi finishes with a shrug.

As she speaks she makes sure she's between Healing Torch and the door and asks, "Are you sure it would be wise for you to go in there?" with a tone that clearly says she knows the answer and that the answer is no.

Torch steps back and says, "Point taken... wait, you talked to the school- I mean, Rough Sketch? Where is she? And what the buck is with these pamphlets?"

Aoi flicks her tail to indicate the building she just left (in answer to Torch's first question). In answer to his second she says, "I believe she is, in her own way, doing what I told her to."

Torch takes a deep breath and says, "I'll be back in a minute.", and walks past Aoi, into the store.That schoolmare isn't gonna waste her life handing out warnings because of one dragonnel's threats. Just find her and get out of here, Torch, stay calm.

Let's try Perception Again.:

Aoi again steps in Torch's way. "I believe we just agreed you should not go in."

Torch shoves past her, saying, "I'm fine, Aoi. Mayor's assistant used mind magic on me, I'm calm."

Aoi narrows her eyes and grabs one of Torch's legs with her tail to force him to look back at her and says, "Very well, if you must. Just promise me you will do nothing to further the Windigo King's power and goals."

Spoiler:

Torch stares at her, then says, "I promise to myself to do nothing further to help him, out of respect for my family." He then turns around and walks into the building.

Ragnarok looks at Aoi frowning she then steps closer and whispers. "We should not allow him to go alone."

"It will be fine Professor, I have made sure of it." Aoi says with a smile.

Spoiler:

Clandestine trots around a corner and into the area, still in her disguise, stopping in front of Aoi. "Hey there! Sorry for walking out on you like that, had something that needed to be taken care of real quick." She remarks, chuckling a bit and rubbing the back of her head with her hoof. "Anyways, what's up with those fliers? Some kind of play that you and your friends are a part of?" She ponders aloud, gesturing to Ragnarok.