Sebastius Mareton, intrepid adventurer, propped his chair against the wall and placed his back hooves on the table. He was a familiar enough patron at this tavern to get away with it. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd gone looking for ancient treasures in Marabia.

Nor, he thought with a malicious glint in his eye, was it the first time for his enemy, Daring Do.

The lighting in the Marabian bar was bad enough already, but the lamp above Sebastius' table was broken. He was reasonably certain the shadows would hide him from the sharp eyes of the archeologist pegasus.

Daring Do and her fellow professor Storm Talon the griffin were sitting at a table in the center of the room. With them were two pegasi that Mareton had never seen before. One of them was young enough to be a student at Canterlot university, and the other looked even younger. Grade school, he figured.

The door opened, and when Mareton saw the new arrival- a gray earth pony with a red mane- he rolled his eyes. Was there some treasure-hunter convention going on that he didn't know about?

Daring Do finished her mug of cider and leapt from her seat, heading the newcomer off before he could get too far. "Hey, Bravado. What are you looking for this time?"

Bravado smirked at Daring, then yanked a dagger from a pocket in his cargo vest, tossed it in the air, and caught it on his hoof, balancing it on the tip and spinning it in a slight circle. "No treasure this time, mi Chiquita. I stopped in the area because of a friend of mine. Azure Lightning. None of his companions have heard from him in nearly a month. I don't suppose you know anything?"

Daring Do bit her lip and shook her head. "Sorry, can't help you. Hope you find him; he's a good pony."

"Don't I know it," Bravado sighed. He stopped spinning the dagger and caught it with his other hoof.

"Well," Daring said, "I was going to ask if you want to help look for a lost temple…"

"Sorry, Daring," Bravado said. "I'm gonna have to decline. But speaking of offers, I ran into a gang of about forty robbers and had to disarm them all, and I got a whole lotta daggers out of the deal. I was going to offer you first pick, but some creepy abada in a doctor's coat took one look at them and told me he'd take them all. And then went off giggling madly. I'd hate to be his patient."

"Eurgh," Daring said.

"But I saved the best for you, si te interesa," Bravado said, handing the dagger to her. "Look at the handle. I think that bandit didn't understand it's true worth, no?"

"Oh, wow…" Daring said, staring transfixed at the dagger. "Storm! Come look at this!"

Professor Storm Talon dropped his mug and strode over to where Daring and Bravado stood, his sharp talons clacking on the floor. "Tell me about it."

Sebastius Mareton saw his chance and slid away from the table, moving stealthily towards Daring Do's young pegasi friends, who were still sitting at the table looking nervous. Clearly Canterlotian kids. Probably had no street smarts worth speaking of.

"As you can see," Bravado said, gesturing to the dagger, "there are marks here in the Epeclia language, speaking of a jewel of fire."

"Probably refers to the Volcanic Rubies," Daring said thoughtfully.

Mareton was a few tables away from his target.

"I believe that the handle contains one of these rubies," Bravado said. "I've seen openable handles shaped like this before. It would have to be one of the smaller ones, though."

"They were always pretty small," Daring said. "The biggest one ever recovered was only the size of a ping-pong ball."

"I know," Bravado said. "My mother told me all about it when I was little. My dad recovered it."

Mareton halted his sneaky progression for a moment to glare at Bravado. He felt himself grow hot with anger at that horrible lie. He almost felt like breaking cover to set that arrogant Horsepanic explorer straight. Fortunately, Storm Talon, who had the market cornered on temper tantrums, got there first.

"No he didn't, you (censored) liar," Storm Talon said. "I recovered that Volcanic Ruby when I was younger, back when Daring's dad and I and some friends were a team."

"My mom was telling the truth," Bravado huffed. "She couldn't have been mistaken."

"I wasn't mistaken either," Storm Talon growled. "I was (censored) there!"

Mareton smirked. Good. Storm Talon and Bravado could hurl insults at each other for a good long while before Daring managed to calm them down. Now was the time to make his move. He walked right up to the two pegasus fillies.

"Hiiiiiiiiiiii, girls," he cooed as he slid into a chair next to the younger filly. He stroked her mane and grinned at her wickedly. The little filly seemed to be too terrified to scream.

"Wh-who are you?" the older one stammered.

"My name isn't important," Mareton said. "What is important is… how close are you to finding the Miracle Chalice?"

"How do you know about that?" the older filly asked, leaning in closer. Honestly, Mareton thought, learn some survival skills. Your adult chaperones are only a few feet away- scream for help! Aren't all girls good at screaming? You're making my job too easy!

Mareton gave her a sweeter smile this time. "Let's just say… I have a better right to the treasure than either of your friends there," he said. "And I intend to be the one to find it. So watch your-"

"Mareton!"

Sebastius looked up and saw Daring Do, Professor Storm Talon, and Bravado all glaring at him.

"Hey, Daring," he said, smirking. "Long time no-"

"Put that filly down," Storm Talon said, glaring at Mareton. "Now."

Sebastius sighed. "I'm not actually holding her, you'll notice, but that's a malleable state. Like this." He picked the filly up and cradled her in his arms.

"L-leave my sister alone!" Ah, the older sister had finally found her voice.

"Why should I? I like kids." Sebastius leered over the little filly. "I like to suck the eyeballs out of their little skulls." He made sucking sounds.

The filly started crying silently.

"Oy!"

Mareton barely had a chance to look up before Bravado's hoof connected with his forehead. Mareton's chair tipped backwards, and he sprawled over the floor. The little pegasus filly quickly ran over to her big sister and hugged her tight, still crying.

"Shh," the older sister said. "It's okay." She put her hooves together in front of her and bowed to Bravado. So did the little sister.

Mareton was up in a flash. "What kind of hello is that?"

"Oh, would you rather I said goodbye instead?" Bravado said. "I'd be happy to knock your arrogant block off."

Mareton snorted. "Yeah, right. I'm not even going to go into the physical impossibilities involved in that statement. Believe it or not, I don't want any trouble. I just noticed what day it was, and came to check if your offer to buy me a drink still stands, Storm Talon."

There was an awkward pause, as Storm Talon shuffled his claws around. He and Daring whispered to each other for a moment. Storm Talon was a bad whisperer.

"I ought to at least see what he wants," Storm Talon was saying. "And I doubt he'll make much of a fuss if I refuse a drink of my own. What could possibly go wrong?"

Daring muttered something darkly. Mareton couldn't quite catch it.

"Understood," Storm Talon said, turning back to Mareton. "All right, I'll buy. But we're sitting somewhere else."

"Sure," Sebastius Mareton said, shrugging. "I've already got us a table." As he walked past Bravado, he kicked the gray earth pony in the leg. "Don't fret, 'vado. I'm sure you'll get a chance to kill me later." Sebatius smirked. "And take care of the kids," he added to Daring. "It would be just awful if something happened to them, isn't that right?"

The two fillies glared at him as he left.

"You really know how to treat," Mareton said. He lifted his mug. "A toast for departed mutual enemies, to commemorate the special day of their departure. Storm Talon, care to say a few words?"

Storm Talon lifted an invisible mug. "Sure, why the (censored) not?" he said, grinning widely, relaxing a bit. "To Deborah Nagridge, hands down (censored) worst president Canterlot University has ever had the (censored) of having, before or since."

"Here's to the demise of unicorn supremacists everywhere, in the hopes that their deaths may be as musical to my ears as that of Nagridge," Mareton said.

"I (censored) (censored) agree, for once, you piece of (censored)," Storm Talon said, elaborately drinking from his invisible mug.

"Best murder ever," Sebastius Mareton cooed, before taking a huge gulp of the spicy alcohol in his mug. "Good stuff. My compliments."

"Cut to the chase," Storm Talon said. "What do you want?"

"Moi?" Sebastius said, giving Storm Talon a very innocent look. "I wasn't going to ask anything of you. I just wanted to warn you that you guys are headed into very dangerous territory. And bringing the kids was a stupid idea. It just gives me more targets. Stupid targets, at that. Seriously, does that little filly even know how to scream?"

"No," Storm Talon said darkly. "Gentle Flower was born unable to talk."

"Ooh. Sounds like torture," Mareton said.

"For you, it would be."

Mareton took another drink and leaned back in his chair. "Remember that time I threatened to cut out your tongue and replace it with a live parasprite? Good times, huh?"

"How would you know anything about the Temple of Ko-mara?" Storm Talon demanded.

"Don't change the subject."

"This is serious. The only reason we knew anything about it was because Sandstorm and Gentle Flower happened to be distantly related to members of the Ko-mara and had a codebook so we could translate their language." Storm Talon smirked. "Daring's always told her students that if they help her find an artifact, they'll get extra credit, but Sandstorm was her first student to take her up on that." The smirk vanished. "So I'll ask again: how would you know anything about where to find it?"

"Puh-lease," Mareton said, rolling his eyes. He pulled a small leather book out of his coat pocket and slammed it on the table. "The entire reason you let my father join your adventuring party in the days of old, when dinosaurs roamed the earth-"

"I'm not that old, you (censored) whippersnapper," Storm Talon said.

"At any rate, the reason you and Daring's father let my father join your adventuring party is because he was, if I may quote you, '(censored) good with (censored) ancient languages.' He'd already figured out the more important words in the Ko-mara langauge before Winchester Tock- and let me repeat that for emphasis- Winchester Tock, as in not me, murdered him."

"The jury gave their testimony and I accepted it," Storm Talon said. "If you're going to hold a grudge about something, I can give you something to (censored) hold a grudge about."

"Injuries to this mortal shell of mine I am willing to forgive and forget," Mareton said, "but insults to my intelligence stand forever. As in, murdering my own father, especially in such a blatantly obvious manner, would have been an incredibly stupid move."

There was an awkward silence, as the two of them turned introspective for a period of time.

"Enough," Sebastius Mareton said, shaking his head. "I didn't call you to reminisce. I just wanted to let you know that you had competition, that's all. But one last thing." He raised his mug. "To Rodolphus Mareton, one of the greatest explorers who ever lived."

Storm Talon gave Mareton a wary look. "All right. I'll drink to that." He raised another invisible mug. "To Rodolphus Mareton, great explorer, great friend, and a great pony. And you, Sebastius, can only dream of the day when you will be worthy to clean your father's (censored) rotting corpse. With your tongue." He pushed violently away from the table and headed back to Daring.

Mareton tisk-tisked as he watched Storm Talon leave. Then he polished off his mug.

"Hey there, Pudding." Two brimming mugs of alcohol thumped on the table.

Mareton turned and saw his old romantic interest, Swinn. Swinn was… a difficult girl to manage, as whenever Mareton met her, he had no way of knowing based on prior experience whether she was planning to ask him out for a date, or planning his demise. Or both. But her use of the cutesy nickname indicated favorable waters tonight, and he was in the mood to hang out with a pretty girl himself, so he decided to play along. "Hey there, Swinn," he said. "Looking good tonight. What treasures doth thou seek in this land of magic and mystery?"

Swinn sat down next to Mareton and played with his mane teasingly. "What? Are you implying there's a greater treasure to be found in this whole entire country than you?"

"I'm glad you find me worthy," Mareton said. "Come here, sweetiekins." He pulled her close and nuzzled her affectionately.

"By the way," Swinn whispered even as she was nuzzling Mareton, "I looked up sociopathy when I got home from our last date, and I learned you guys are physically incapable of loving another pony besides yourself. So you can't fool me anymore."

Alarm bells went off in Mareton's head. He pulled away from the nuzzle. "You misunderstand. Perhaps we don't understand love in the same way you normies do, but we can feel affection."

"In the same way that a pony might like his favorite hat, or a filly might feel an attachment to her pet goldfish," Swinn said, smiling excessively sweetly.

This was not going very well…

"What?" Mareton said, looking shocked. "You haven't seen how attached some ponies get to their material possessions? To some of them, it becomes an all-consuming obsession. Their passion. Stand between them and the thing they care about, and watch them get angry." Mareton rubbed a hoof under Swinn's chin. "And let me tell you, if anybody was to harm you, they would regret it with their last breath. I'd make sure of that."

Swinn giggled. "Come here, cutie pie." She pulled him into a tight embrace.

Mareton resisted the urge to sigh with relief. One blow dodged.

The hug over and done with, Swinn picked up her mug. "To old friends, huh, Pudding?" She extended the mug.

Mareton smiled and clinked his mug with hers. "Cheers, Swinny dear." He took a big gulp.

Swinn giggled maliciously. "Oh, Mareton, that was very silly of you. I thought I'd have to use a whole lot more charm to get you to swallow that."

Mareton set the cup down and giggled back. "That's one of the special things about being a treasure hunter, me dearie," he said, pulling a shiny medallion from a secret pocket after a couple of tries. "You get all sortsa speshul stuff, like this 'ere amulet of potion inumity… impunity…"

"Immunity, Pudding," Swinn said. "I know. But I did a bit of research on this amulet of yours, and learned that it only guards against poisons that kill you. Well, kill you directly, I should say. After all, one could, theoretically, slip somepony a potion that puts them to sleep, leaving them still alive, but rather… shall we say… helpless?

Mareton's vision was blurring, he couldn't hear too well, and his head felt light.

"So, Pudding," Swinn said, leaning close and rubbing Sebastius' chin, "any last words?"

"Uh, last wordssss?" he slurred. "Uh… hey, Marv, know any good last words?"

He fell off his chair and landed right on his head.

It hurt, but not enough to stop him from blacking out.

Or maybe that's why he blacked out.

Mareton didn't much care.

Mareton was having a nightmare.

That wasn't unusual, of course, with his line of work. What was unusual was the kind of nightmare. There were no visuals; only darkness, a few odd sentences of conversation, and the occasional sharp pain. Mareton wondered if hell was like this- invisible tormentors mocking your plight as they attacked you with sharp implements that you couldn't see.

"This is going to be F-U-N!" one demon said. "Here, hand me that ceremonial battle axe. It wasn't like we were going to fool anypony into thinking it was authentic anyway."

"We could have tried Professor Ed," the other demon said. "He falls for everything."

"He only buys pottery. Aaaaaand whack!"

Mareton's neck suddenly hurt like crazy. He tried to shout or bring his hooves to his neck or something, but his body didn't respond anymore.

"Eep!"

"Oops!"

"The innkeeper is going to hate us…"

"That rug can't be that expensive, can it?"

"It's so…. so… red."

"Huh, there wasn't so much blood when that other guy did it… now for the legs. I should have done this years ago!"

"I can't look!"

Mareton felt more sharp pains in various places along his legs. He'd thought you were supposed to be judged before you went to hell or something. Were there courts of appeal in hell? Not that he expected to get into heaven…

"Oops, let's try that again…"

"Tell me when it's over!"

"Yeesh, it's so hard to get a clean cut… and this axe handle is so slippery…"

"I think I'm going to be sick!"

"You can't be sick, I need your help! Now we have to put everything back."

"Eurgh. How does so much blood even fit in his body?"

"Here, help me find where all the legs rolled."

"No way!"

"Well, hold this at least."

"Ew, ew, ew! It's so… wet! Ewwww, what is it?"

"Uh, part of one of his legs, I think. I don't know which one…"

"Ick!"

Splat.

"Hey, you got blood on my new skirt!"

"That's your fault, Swinn! This was all your idea!"

"Okay, okay, I think I've got all the pieces… check under the bed for me, will you?"

"No!"

"Okay then, you try and figure out which pieces go on which stub while I check under the bed."

"Fine, you win. There's nothing there."

"Good. Help me with this."

"Eurgh, fine. I hate this I hate this I hate this…"

"Hey, one of these legs is longer than the other.

"I think this piece goes there. Ugh."

"It looked so easy when the surgeon was putting everything back together…"

"That's because he left them in the same place."

"Guess we should have done that… okay, hand me the medicine."

Squishing noises.

"I think… do his legs look right to you?"

"I can't tell in this lighting."

"Well, then, turn the lights up, will you?"

"No! Then I have to see all the blood."

"Okay, we'll just declare it close enough. Now give me his head."

"Okay AUGH!"

"What?"

"His- his eye! It's gone!"

"What? What do you mean 'gone'? Did it roll somewhere?"

"I-I don't know! Just look!"

"Augh! He looks like a Cyclops or something! What did you do, Dell?"

"I-I don't know! I didn't do anything!"

"Um, um, um… hey, eyepatches look cool, so Mareton should thank us!"

"He doesn't need an eyepatch, Swinn. His eye just… vanished."

"Um… oh, well. We can't do anything about it. Just hold his neck up so I can stick this on."

"Ewwwwww…"

"Hey, you let go!"

"Sorry, I thought you were done!"

"No, hold it steady!"

"I think you need to turn it a bit…"

"Just dump all the rest of the medicine on! It isn't healing!"

"Oops!"

There was a pause.

"Hey, look, it stayed on."

"Yeah, but he isn't awake… are you sure he's alive? Even after all that?"

"Only one way to find out."

There was a loud clang right in Mareton's ear, followed by Swinn shouted "MARETON! WAKE UP!"

Mareton's eyes sprang open.

No… one eye. The other wouldn't open. Why wasn't it opening?

Swinn and Dell were leaning over him. Swinn was holding a pair of pots in her hooves.

"H-how are you feeling?" Dell asked. "Does anything hurt?"

His head was splitting, his legs felt like they'd been bitten by a lion, and his neck still ached, but like hay Mareton was going to tell these two ponies that.

"No…" he said, trying to get to his hooves. This was made more complicated by the fact that none of his legs wanted to go the same direction, and the floor was slick with some sort of liquid. It smelled herbal.

"Are you light headed, or…" Dell whispered to Swinn. "Hey, Swinn, how do ponies who suffer blood loss usually feel?"

"Dead," Swinn whispered back.

"You realize I can hear you, right?" Mareton said. He gripped a night table and heaved himself to his hooves, then promptly fell over again as soon as he let go.

"But what… why are you w-walking like that?" Swinn asked.

"Iiiiii think we did something wrong, Swinn…" Dell whispered.

Sebastius Mareton tried the nightstand again, and this time he made sure all his legs were under his body properly before letting go. He remained upright.

"Now what…" Something else was wrong. When Mareton let his neck relax and looked down, he could only see one of his front hooves. When he turned way to the left, he could see both front hooves. When he turned way to the right, he could see his… tail.

"Augh!" the SwinnDell sisters screamed when he turned to look at his tail.

"H-how did you do that?" Swinn whispered. "I got a clean cut on that one…"

"Oh, Swinn!" Dell shouted. "We put his head back on sideways!"

"S-sideways? Sideways?" Sebastius turned back to the night table and looked at the mirror on it. Sure enough, when his neck was relaxed and felt like it was facing forwards, it was really facing to the side. No wonder he'd had so much trouble getting himself to his hooves.

Then the other part of the sentence reached his groggy brain.

"Put my head back on? What was it doing off?"

"Err…" the unicorn twins said in unison.

"Wait what?" Sebastius did a double take. One eye was normal. Perfectly regular.

The other eye wasn't there.

It just wasn't. There was a blank space on his face where his eye used to be.

Mareton tried to whirl around and confront the sisters, and promptly fell flat on his face. And on his side. At the same time. Because his head was messed up.

"You stupid girls!" he shouted, dragging himself forward and trying to grab them by the neck, only for one leg to twist the wrong direction and for the other to refuse to bend at all, resulting in him falling down again.

This could not be happening. How was this possible? He was usually so careful…

And now he'd gone and got his head cut off.

"Now what?" Dell whispered.

Sebastius heaved himself to his hooves again. "Now you undo whatever it is you did. Now."

There was a pause as the two sisters blinked at him, during which Mareton did his utmost to remain upright.

Then Swinn smirked. "Says who? You're hardly in a position to be threatening us."

Dell grinned too. "We did pick you because you're expendable. Maybe Daring will give us a medal next time she sees us."

"You are going to…" Sebastius tried to think of a threat that sounded credible in his position. "…suffer a world of pain," he finished lamely. He usually prided himself on very detailed threats and graphic descriptions of torture made up on the spur of the moment. It was a labor of love.

"Oh, I think not," Swinn said. "Goodbye."

She telekinetically opened the window and telekinetically tossed Mareton out.

"Have fun!" she called after him as he fell.

Mareton struck the soft mud in the streets. At least the ground was wet. And at least the SwinnDell sisters' room was only on the second floor.

Ow…

Mareton lay in the mud a while, letting the rain fall on him, too busy feeling sorry for himself to move. He was wet, he was dirty, he had just been hacked to pieces and reassembled into some freak of nature…

But one thing that really hurt was that the girls had tossed him out the window using magic, while he, being an earth pony, had been unable to do anything to stop them.

Those girls would pay. With their lives.

No, with their pain. He would make them suffer.

And then he'd make them put him back to normal. That was very important.

Except that Sebastius had a natural aversion to any plan that involved getting his head cut off. What would stop Swinn from hacking his neck in two, and then deciding she had more important things to do than reattach it?

Hmm…

Mareton ruffled through his secret pockets, which took a lot longer than usual because his hooves kept bending in odd directions. Finally he managed to fish out one of the trinkets he'd picked up over the course of his adventuring life. It looked like a normal dagger, except for the bright blue sheen of the metal. In reality, it was one of the famed ice daggers, made harder and sharper than anything else in existence.

Well, sort of. Mareton had managed to cut a diamond with it, once, but it had taken a lot of force and even then it had only scratched the diamond, not really cut it. But maybe that was because the blade was dull. Nopony ever said these artifacts kept in pristine condition forever. But for Mareton's purposes, it was sharp enough.

Now he just had to figure out how to walk without falling over…