Celestia's New Challenge

Celestia started hearing about attacks on caravans on the route to Canterlot and decided this was too important to leave to the guard, mostly because they seemed to have been fucking up in the defense part when they were assigned to the traveling caravans of the job when they were assigned to. This matter required a more personal involvement. As a Solar Paladin, Celestia was duty-bound to at least give it a go at investigating the cause and playing her part as a protector. Unlike Luna’s Rune Monk order, the Solar Paladin order had started growing after Celestia had first stepped up as an accomplished member of the order. And after being made one of the nation’s leaders, she was ordained by the order with their highest rank, Sol, a position that had ironically been left vacant over a decade before she started learning from the order. It would be in everyone’s best interest if the populace didn’t know their illustrious leader was playing guard duty; asking around for more details was fine. Still, everyone would be acting unconvincingly if she were to be known to be playing guard duty.

First, Celestia had to prepare for everything. The presentation was always important for one of her station; she had to look the part for her position and to make sure everyone knew she was taking things seriously. After the initial investigation, which would involve a lot of legwork, she would have to don her disguise and make her way along the route to find the ones responsible for the issues. The alter ego she crafted for this endeavor would be a unicorn mare named Noon Effulgence. To her knowledge, no pony had that name just yet. Celestia would need to prepare her gear before going out to investigate. She thought about the gear she would need. Armor is a must but deciding which weapons to carry is a bit more difficult.

Celestia got ready to head out to Canterlot; she made sure to put on the appropriate attire for seeming to be out on the town in Canterlot. Her outfit for the first part of this was a sparkly lime sea blue formal dress that showed off quite a bit of the cleavage of her MM-Cup bosom. She also made sure to wear underwear with a special enchantment to keep her new...developments from being readily available for the populace to see, no telling what could happen if her subjects saw her with stallion parts. The residential area of the castle at Canterlot was still being made. When the palace is finished it will act as the new home for Celestia and Luna, a castle with more space, better defensibility, and less potentially dangerous wildlife to worry about.

Before moving on to wearing her planned attire for the investigation, she would need to get a new set of armor, one that’s less ceremonial and more practical. As things stood, all her more combat type armors would no longer fit her figure; she had outgrown them in what felt like ages ago. As things stood, the only armor that fit her was ceremonial, it looked pretty but was practically useless for combat purposes. If she was going to find herself in a fight, Celestia had to make sure her armor could actually hold up in combat. Celestia went to see Flare Hammer for her new combat-ready armor.

Celestia went to the royal smith and told her she required armor that was intended for a combat scenario. This was not meant to be some ceremonial armor she would be parading around in with all the eyes of the nation on her; it was meant to be an armor that would see the battlefield. It took a few days, but her new “combat appropriate armor” was ready for her. Said armor was basically a golden suit that accentuated her feminine figure, had a breastplate with cleavage window, one that basically made a good portion of the breastplate nonfunction (even if there was an extra optional plate in the collection to cover it up), and said breastplate was molded to the form of Celestia’s on buxom bosom (just a bit bigger to give some extra space in case someone actually hit that area). And that’s not to mention groin guard was more akin to a modern bikini bottom, with an optional codpiece (of all things, and said codpiece was modeled surprisingly well on Celestia’s penis (it was even the same size as Celestia’s dick in practically all its dimensions), Celestia decided to keep that optional armor accessory stashed away in a personal cache of hers in Canterlot Castle. At the same time, she wore the optional cover for the breastplate to make sure she had full coverage for her torso. The armor also came with a golden helmet that evoked the image of the sun rising behind the head of the wearer and a removable face covering.

Even though her armor was more practical, Celestia felt like her armor was constraining her when she covered up the cleavage window; she was confused as to why. After making sure her combat armor, and all its pieces, fit her, Celestia got to work conversing with the ponies in Canterlot. It would still be a few years before the castle was ready for Celestia and her sister to move in. Still, some of the more socially elite ponies had managed to procure territory for their own personal residences that were far easier to bring to a liveable condition; there were also a few shops and diners that had sprung up across the city, chances were they would change with the markets. Still, the city's current condition meant they could at least make enough to justify their presence and procure enough stock to last a few months. That was before the incidents that lead to Celestia launching this personal investigation.

After almost a month of investigating, Celestia wanted to be a thorough as possible, even if it did mean more incidents would happen in that time, Celestia learned that while the raids were sudden there were no potentially dangerous injuries; in fact, it seemed the assailants went out of their way not to hurt anyone, they also passed up anything trembling money or gems and only seemed to target food, cooking materials, and occasionally raided medical supplies. For all intents and purposes, the evidence suggested a party or parties that were far more intent on survival but did not wish to make their presence tangibly known to the ponies of the area, possibly they were fearful of the Equestrians and merely turned to this method because of some factor or factors that she was not yet made aware of.

The next step of her plan was to masquerade as one of the caravan escorts until the culprit or culprits made their move. As Noon Effulgence, Celestia was able to play her part as a guard well. She was able to provide a believable story about being a newly appointed Solar Paladin, and even had official papers written up for the ruse; the only one in the order that was in on the ruse was Bright Wind, who coincidentally was also her Captain of the Guard, she wasn’t too happy about all this. Still, she knew why and had a team ready to jump into action at Celestia’s command.

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Three days after she finished her investigation, Celestia, under the guise of Noon Effulgence, was playing the part of escort from Canterlot to a new community that was just beginning to go up, the place didn’t have a name yet. Still, a few of the ponies there were debating (read getting into some very odd duels) on what the community should be called. Celestia was thankful she had finally settled on her weapons, an arming sword as the backup weapon, a crossbow with 2 cases of 20 bolts on her right hip (one case was in her bag while the other was on her back hip), a war hammer on her back for when she had to get serious, and a spear her primary weapon which was also using as a walking stick.

The caravan was moving at a much more cautious, slower pace than it usually would; reports of attacks would do that. Celestia, as Noon Effulgence, had chosen to position herself at the midpoint between the carts for food and medical supplies, her investigation told her the assailants would likely target one of those carts above any other. Even though no ponies were hurt, and the only damage to ponies on record were minor injuries, the fact that stock was basically stolen from the caravan was still a serious concern. Currently, the food provisions were a bit lacking, the caravan was heading to an agricultural community that was a good week’s march from Canterlot, so chances of an encounter while on the way to get the food would mean no attacks on the way out but it was still important to keep vigil just in case. As they were passing through one of the forest paths closest to Canterlot things started to get ominous.

Before she knew it, Celestia and her charges found themselves suddenly beset by an unknown assailant at a little past where the forest shade began to dominate the environment. Even with illumination spells, it was necessary to slow down considerably to avoid potential obstacles. Celestia had to admit, this was probably one of the best spots for an ambush, seeing as some of the provisions were already pilfered. After the caravan had been going through the overly shaded forest route for maybe half an hour of the hour or so that part of the route comprised the began. The assailant, or assailants, it was hard to tell on account of the quality of the illumination spells, and Celestia not wanting to reveal herself too soon, had begun their move.

Celestia spotted some of the food and medical supplies from various carts had already been removed from their carts, she quickly ran five spells in concurrence, something that even the talented unicorns were noticeably unable to do since even the most magically skilled unicorns could only do three spells at most without completely losing focus or accidentally blending one spell into another in a potentially hazardous manner, to scan all the carts for intruders, move the carts to a point further down the route without her or any unwanted occupants, identify how many opponents she was dealing with, the nature of her opponents, and quickly illuminate her immediate area to better give herself the advantage. It would be best if her subjects didn’t know their ruler had resolved the situation, it would be far better for their further development to believe a dedicated member of the guard achieved such a tremendous feat. Of course, she would probably have to hold a ceremony for her guise, making the appropriate arrangements would prove somewhat problematic.

Before her was a singular creature, it appeared to be reptilian no bigger than a young foal. Celestia wondered what a mine kobold was doing here, there wasn’t anything resembling a mining location anywhere near this place. The kobold was dressed in what looked like a belt with a brace made of interlocking spirals around his cock. It was armed with a sword in one hand and spear in the other, both looked to be of shoddy workmanship, but the attire around its waist and phallus seemed to be of excellent quality, it seemed to be made of black leather and black steel. The kobold itself was a dark shale color, it was no wonder it was so hard to find in the dark forest path. The creature’s penis was quite large, a good third of the size of a large pony cock, by her rough estimates, kobolds usually were not so well-hung.

“Well, that’s certainly some...unique attire you have there,” said Celestia as she dropped her guise and ready hear spear. In doing so, the part of her armor that was supposed to block her cleavage fell away Apparently, it had a broken locking mechanism, not that she minded all that much, but she still found it reasonably annoying.

In a broken, but understandable, version of the common Equestrian tongue the kobold said, “You dare mock the cock armor of my tribe, cock armor is the greatest achievement of the tribe. Pony with armor must pay for the offending tribe.” With that, the kobold attacked Celestia, the white alicorn tried to mount a defense but found her defensive spells had almost no effect on the kobold. At best, her defensive magics slowed the kobold down for a second or two. Before she knew it, the kobold was violently thrusting his dick into her cleavage as an attack before bounding away and running about to disorient her for a minute or so before doing the same action over and over again.

The battle went on for much longer than Celestia would have liked before she finally managed to dodge out of the way of her opponent and literally catch him by his penis, the little lizard creature cried in surprised agony and dropped what he was holding then basically went from the pain, seemed Celestia was gripping his dick a bit too tight. Celestia wanted to see if she could get a read on just what she was actually dealing with, but she was also curious as to why a monster known for occupying mines like a diamond dog was present in this forest. So she set the creature down and waited for it to wake up, which took far longer than she would have liked.

The moment the kobold was up it was on its knees groveling and begging for her to not hurt her anymore. It also went through a rapid-fire explanation that it was stealing food and medical supplies for its tribe because they were for those sorts of things. Seemed their food sources had become scarce, Celestia would have to look into how that happened. “Alright,” said Celestia, “I understand, and I will help move your tribe to a more advantageous location, I’ll also set up a trade network between your tribe and the ponies. That way, you’ll be able to trade whatever it is you manage to craft for things you need, I’ll start things off small by providing you with enough food, water, and medical supplies to last about a week as a sort of disaster relief but then it will be on your tribe to ensure good relations for your own survival.”

The kobold nodded eagerly and enthusiastically with the agreement and lead her through the woodland to where his tribe was holding up, “We found big shiny cache nearby, dragons like shinies so kobolds like shinies.” Celestia blinked for a moment before recalling that kobolds worshiped dragons as they were gods, some tribes even consisted of worshiping a specific dragon. Still, most kobolds worshiped dragons as a whole pantheon that walked the mortal realm. It took almost an hour to make it to the community but when they did Celestia’s jaw would have hit the ground if she wasn’t so good at holding her composure, she still had a look of awe but it was far more restrained than it should have been. The kobolds had built an entire hidden town in the trees around a mine that was literally under the roots of a golden oak at the center of the whole thing, kobolds were hauling out simple buckets filled with gold, silver, and platinum beneath the great oak tree. There was no telling how rich the mine actually was, it actually handily explained why the kobolds were the forest but not why came to settle in the first place or what prompted them to mine here, to begin with.

“Please gather the tribal elders and chief,” said Celestia to her guide, “and tell them that I am here to discuss things to make things potentially better for everyone. I will wait outside the bounds of the community until you are all ready to speak with me, I don’t want to possibly intrude where I am likely unwanted.” With that, the kobold left Celestia at the edge of the community, a vantage point from which she could observe some of the village's goings-on. When the kobold returned with the chief, a female winged kobold with onyx black scales over most of her body with a few red scales forming a sort of highlight on her arms and legs and head and neck and tail in a simple dress clearly made from the local flora. The elders, Celestia told them all she had considered letting them stay in Canterlot for a bit but worried about unintentional interaction that could ignite turmoils between the ponies and the kobolds so she was going to compromise by giving them the entire lower half of the mountain, minus the road network (and any other fast transportation methods that could happen in the future) leading up to Canterlot proper.

That all taken care of, Celestia informed them that anything they found within the mountain was theirs to use as they pleased. And given everything she was promising, and as a means of showing the kobolds meant no ill will towards the ponies, she suggested they offer up peace offerings to the ponies of Canterlot and the caravans that frequented the area they were currently were in as a show of good faith, the elders were in agreement about that, but the chief was having doubts. To assuage the chief, Celestia gave the kobold the spear that her alter ego was equipped with and the optional piece that had come off of her armor, that seemed to satisfy the lizard woman, likely because worked metal like that was hard for kobolds to come by.

After the negotiations were done, Celestia gave them a map to where she intended to start them off as a new home, reasoned it would take them a few days to get there (time she would be using to properly prepare for them), and teleported back to Canterlot in a flash. What she didn’t see was the awe the kobolds had of her casual uses of powerful magic when she left. The moment she was back in Canterlot Celestia started prepping for the kobolds, which mostly meant finding the necessary resources for them and storage for said resources. Hence, they weren’t all over the place when the kobolds arrived.