Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Arts & Talents => Topic started by: Scotty on November 25, 2009, 04:55:36 pm
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I wrote this a year ago for my Comp class, and the teacher loved it. I recently dug it up (as in about two weeks ago) and figured I'd continue it. Before I do that, however, I thought I would gage reactions from a slightly larger base than my teacher and all 17 people who've read it on writing.com in that time. Feel free to critique and suggest fixes. Thanks!
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Be Warned
The house, high upon a hill, gave mute testimony to the tenacity of its builders. It stood like a sentry, keeping silent vigil on the copses and clearings below. Not a breeze blew, and it seemed for all the world that time had simply stopped.
A pair of figures approached the abode. Jess Dimmel and her brother Bradd trekked closer, come to visit the distant relatives of the Kansas backcountry. The house, a mansion almost, was painted a hideous lime green. The paint became more faded, and the trim looked more rotted every step of the way to the steps. The garden in front was merely a mass of tangled weeds.
Jess and Bradd exchanged nervous glances. Both could remember the fiasco at last year’s family reunion. The Lewises, the distantly related owners of the wretched structure, had made a mess of the party with just a riding lawnmower. Before climbing the front steps, Jess gazed forlornly at the very rapidly receding dust cloud on the road. Their parents hadn’t wanted anything to do with the Lewises, aside from dropping Jess and Bradd off to a long summer. Bradd had already braved the mangled steps, and was about to answer the door.
However, before he could knock, the door swung open with enough force to knock more paint off the shabby exterior. Jess whipped around to the door just in time to see a wide, smiling face peering out before the owner spoke.
“Well, gee! It’s sure good to see y’all folks!” The cragged visage spewed, “Ain’t got much work done here since ol’ Trevor broke his leg.” The broken, hillbilly-ish speech was the only clue needed to know that this was the dreaded Aunt Selma. “Well? C’mon in! Figure I might’s well show y’all ‘round the place, afore I setcha to work.” Bradd and Jess had time to share a dismayed look before they were almost dragged in by their collars. Work! This was supposed to be summer vacation! There was no time to protest, though, before Aunt Selma gave them a grand 30-second tour of the house and its inhabitants. Of the six, two were infants, one an invalid, one with a broken leg, one drifter, and Aunt Selma, the cook. That left poor Jess and Bradd to do all the work. It was going to be a long summer.
* * * * * *
THUNK! The thick axe thudded into the wood. Bradd hefted the axe to swing again while Jess placed another log on the chopping block. In three weeks, the only time they had spent not working had been spent eating or sleeping. With the state of Aunt Selma’s cooking, both immensely preferred the latter. Aside from those brief respites, every minute of every day was spent doing chores of one form or another.
THUNK! The axe thudded again, this time sending wood chips flying. Mowing the ridiculously huge lawn, chopping firewood, pruning every tree and shrub for a mile in every direction. The list went on. Doing the dishes, washing the laundry, drying the laundry. The chores never ended. With a grunt, Bradd hefted the axe again.
THUNK! Work went on. Every few seconds, another resounding thunk echoed across the clearing. Bradd and Jess were about a mile away from the house. Much as they hated working, that didn’t stop the Lewis’ from making everything more difficult than it should be.
With a final thunk, Bradd split the last log he and Jess had brought with them. His work done for now, Bradd leaned against the stump he had been chopping on to rest. While he took the brief opportunity, Jess headed back with a wheelbarrow to gather more wood. As the squeaky wheel faded in the distance, Bradd lay fully back on the stump to try and grab a quick nap before Jess got back.
A muted snap sounded to Bradd’s left, rousing him. Rising from his rest, another sound caught his attention. A faint rustling sound was getting slowly louder. The sound was coming from the same direction as the snap. Like an approaching freight train, the sound grew steadily louder, until it seemed like it came from right next to him. Now it didn’t just come from one direction either. Bradd frantically whipped around to find out where the sound was coming from, but every time he did, the source changed. In the space of less than a second, the sound abruptly stopped. There was another snap, muted this time, and then dead silence.
This time Bradd was alert enough to know where the last one had come from. There was a stand of elm trees about thirty feet to Bradd’s left that the sound had come from. He couldn’t hear the squeaky wheel in the distance, and decided he had enough time to check it out. When Bradd was fifteen feet from the stand, the rustle started again, but muted, like through water. Every step Bradd took, the sound got louder, until he was right next to the stand. He peered in, the sound stopped, and Bradd saw… a completely normal stand of elm trees.
Bradd turned back toward the stump, the wheel now audible. These Flint Hills are weird, I must be hearing things. Right as he finished his thought, there was one more, quiet snap in the stand. Despite his better judgment, Bradd turned back toward the sound… just in time to see the stand seemingly explode. A strong gust of wind came howling out of the stand and knocked Bradd over. While shocked over what happened, Bradd was really surprised when the seemingly solid ground crumpled beneath him like a Kleenex. With a cry of shock, he fell into the newly opened pit in the ground.
He didn’t fall long. Little more than ten feet down, the hole ended with a floor too flat to be natural. Bradd lifted himself off the ground and tried to ignore the aches and pains already springing to his attention. Where the heck did this come from? he wondered.
Bradd surveyed his surroundings. The hole he had fallen in wasn’t so much a hole as a cave. To his left, some stalactites and stalagmites had grown together and blocked off the path. To Bradd’s right, an ornately carved stone door obstructed his way. With a start, Bradd realized that, even though he could see the door, the only light in the entire cave was coming from the hole he fell in. An eerie, diffuse blue-green glow allowed him to see everything beyond his little ring of light. The Stone door was more than fifty feet down the passage. Every ten feet was a cast iron bracket on the wall. The bracket closest to Bradd had the remains of a crude torch in it. Bradd was just about to head down the tunnel when his sister’s voice rang through hole.
“Bradd?! Are you alright?” her concerned voice called.
“I’m fine! Hey Jess, there’s something weird down here, I’m gonna check it out,” Bradd called back. Before she could protest further, Bradd jogged up the corridor to the door. The door was carved with symbols up and down the circular rim. Mostly they looked like gibberish, but here and there was a familiar letter. An L here, a b there. None of it made any sense of course. Bradd reached out to touch a symbol, but just before his had brushed the stone, the door swung silently inward, like it weighed nothing.
Bradd was about to call to his sister to come see the door, but suddenly, he found his attention captured by something in the center of the room. A large reflecting pool sat in the center of a large room. That in itself wasn’t very interesting, but what was in it was. A thick trickle of water flowed into the other side of the pool. Again, that wasn’t the weird part. The weird part was, the pool didn’t move. Not a ripple, not anything. Bradd instantly became nervous about this whole thing.
On impulse, Bradd lifted up a small pebble from the ground and chucked it into the center of the pool. It simply disappeared with nothing to show it had ever existed. If he hadn’t seen the pebble sink into the pool, he would have said it never happened. The mirror-like surface seemed to call out to him. Bradd bent down to look in the pool… and he could feel that something was gazing back. Transfixed, he stood there, minutes, hours, days, time had no meaning. All the mattered was that he was gazing into the pool, and the someone was gazing back.
Bradd…… The sound was less than a whisper, but it blasted into his silence-deafened ears. Shocked, Bradd jetted backward, and smacked his head none too gently on the wall behind him.
Stifling a groan, he yelled back up the hall, “Hey Jess? There’s something really weird dow-”
With sickening suddenness, his voice cut off as a brilliant white light exploded from the surface of the still unnaturally smooth and silent pool.
* * * * * *
Jess was getting more worried by the minute. It had been almost half an hour since she had seen Bradd fall into the cave, er… hole, er… whatever it was. Five minutes later, he had told her he was going to check something. Now, she hadn’t heard from him in twenty minutes! Whatever is down there had better be interesting!
With a sigh, she laid back, debating whether to go in after him. She had almost made up her mind to go in. Boy, is he gonna be in troub-
Jess…… The whisper startled her out of her growing anger. She was still recovering from the shock when Bradd’s voice echoed out of the cave.
“Hey Jess? There’s something really weird dow-” Before he could finish, Jess’s world exploded. A blinding white light blasted form the hole in the ground like a beacon, making what had been a sunny summer day seem like the depths of midnight by comparison. Blinded, Jess fell to the ground, and a gusting wind shrieked out of the opening. To Jess, it looked and felt like the end of the world. It even seemed like the ground was moving.
Eventually, the tempest subsided, and the world calmed. Jess got up… and saw a completely different countryside. The clearing she and Bradd had been in was gone. Now Jess was standing in and among trees of gigantic size. Looking up, the lowest tree canopies were 500 feet up. Around her, the landscape was as different as night and day. She hadn’t imagined it when she felt the ground moving. She had been waiting on a small hill, now she was at the bottom of a depression. I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore. Just about the only thing that was the same was the cave that Bradd was in. Now that she looked at it, it was exactly the same, right down to the grass around it in a perfect circle for ten feet. After that, it was a strange blue-ish color. It was like the whole thing had simply been put somewhere else. All in all, the scenery was surreal.
The trees, the ones she could actually see, looked like a New England fall, but with a riot of colors like purple and blue mixed in. Every single tree was a different color, and as she watched, a yellow tree turned orange spontaneously.
She was so enraptured by the scene that she failed to notice the group of figures gathering in the bushes around her. Her first clue that something was wrong was a sound of rustling leaves that came from everywhere. Still spinning to look for the source of the sound, she fell into a blackness darker than the white had been bright before.
Behind her, the cave entrance shimmered and disappeared.
* * * * *
Consciousness returned slowly to Bradd. He was unaware of how long he sat there, hovering between waking and blackness. A far off dripping sound was what finally brought him fully awake. The more he woke, the closer the sound got. Bradd opened his eyes and gingerly stood up. His head was killing him, and he couldn’t remember what he had been doing after he looked into the pool. The dripping sound, he realized, was the trickle of water on the far wall dripping into the water. Water that was still motionless. Bradd watched in amazement as the dripping water formed a puddle on the pool.
Bradd looked around for the exit, whatever had made this place so enticing was gone now. Bradd spotted the door in the faint…red?… glow. He could have sworn it was green before. The more he thought about it the worse his headache got, so he smartly forgot about it.
Bradd made his way to the door he came it. Now that there was actual water filling the cave, however slowly, he didn’t want to be there. Now that he was leaving, he noticed that the glow was noticeably brighter. The ornately carved stone door was in the same place, so at least he was going the right way. Something he didn’t quite recognize was bothering him though.
Oblivious, Bradd walked right through the door, now carved in picture perfect cursive writing :
“Be warned, you who would walk between worlds……”
Notes:
1) Stars indicate POV or time breaks. The first is time, the second and third are POV switches to following Jess and Bradd, respectively.
2) I realize that Bradd's falling into the ground could be a lot less convoluted, but I can't for the life of me think how. Any thoughts would be good.
3) Is there a better way to show thoughts and feelings of characters from thrid person than with italics? It kind of grates when I do that.
4) I wrote this about exactly one year ago (wow, time flies), and I've started on a continuation. Would anyone be interested if I posted it here too?
5) Total word count is 958 (I think, might be a few off). Is that long enough for a chapter, or should I add to it first?
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Definitely write more! Cut some of the verbiage - adverbs and adjectives can generally go. Streamline your environmental descriptions.
I like it. The most important thing is just to Keep Writing.
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Yeah, I'd definitely be interested in reading more.
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I agree; this was a very good read. Would love to see you keep going with it. :)
My only critique is for a couple of overused/rendundant words here and there, but these are minor. Your description of events/setting and the overall otherworldliness are well done and I had great mental imagery while reading.
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Question. Are they travening between worlds as in planets or "universes". And will they all be of your creation or will you throw in some from other works?
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Well, it's hard these days to be completely original. Someone, somewhere has done it before. With that in mind, some of the more well know things may make an appearance, but I actually have a list of things that definitely WILL NOT appear in any further installment to avoid massive cliches.
As for the travelling question: Wait and find out :P
The next part is about half done, from what I can tell, but the pseudo-ending (just the chapter thingy, not the story) isn't set in stone and is subject to change. Will post here when finished. :)
EDIT: Since I finished the next part before someone else posted, I'll just add it here.
Be Warned (Chapter 2)
Jess Dimmel awoke suddenly and with perfect clarity to… absolutely nothing. The only thing different from the blackness of unconsciousness was that now Jess could feel her eyes were open to the air. So complete was the darkness that all sense of time flew from it.
Jess gingerly got up and tried to make her way to what most closely resembled a wall in this, her own personal abyss. It didn’t take long to find; the wall did its best to appear out of thin air. One moment Jess was groping for the wall with her outstretched arm, the next, she was lying on her back, very surprised.
Bewildered, Jess tried to reach at where she knew the wall was… but it wasn’t there. She leaned forward, trying to get a better feel, and once again found herself lying on her back some distance away from where she was, with a dull tingling coursing through her limbs. A quick venture in the opposite direction yielded the same result.
So… I’m trapped in here by something, she though, rubbing her arms, as if to restore the feeling to a limb that fell asleep. There was obviously something keeping her in, the only questions were what it was and how to get out.
Thinking of that led Jess to realize that wherever she was, it didn’t feel artificial. This place felt natural, as if it had been here longer than whoever built it had. Jess futilely bent down to try and get a view of the floor. Wonderful idea, that, since there was no light at all in the cell, er, whatever it was. Jess reached out a hand for the floor, only to find dirt. Just dirt? she wondered, Is that it? Impulse struck, and Jess began wiping away the dust and grime. Suddenly, her hand struck wood. Jess knew what this was immediately. I’m in one of the gigantic trees! But there wasn’t any light coming from above her, so how did she get in here?
Jess lay back and considered her present predicament. Alright, let’s see. I’m in Kansas, chopping wood, when Bradd falls in a pit. A few minutes later, I’m blinded by something coming out of the same pit. I wake up under impossibly gigantic trees, and immediately wake up, again, here. Jess pondered, and came to the only rational explanation her tired mind could come up with. I must be mad. Stuff like that can’t happen!
But, what if she weren’t? The though struck Jess cold. If she wasn’t mad, that meant she was really alone and on her own. The irony of madness being the most beneficial circumstance was, unsurprisingly, lost on Jess. Bradd! He never came out of that cave! Jess’s mind raced with the implications of her latest thoughts.
So wrapped up, that she didn’t hear the faint, almost inaudible sound of rustling leaves.
* * * * *
Bradd was trapped.
The faint red glow of the chamber behind him gave enough light to show him the futility of trying to break through the solid wall of ice between him and the outside. The dripping had not stopped, but actually gotten stronger and more frequent. The temperature of the cave was somehow unchanging, which was melting the ice around him. The only problem with that was the cave would fill up before this was gone. If Bradd didn’t get out soon, he never would.
Bradd got up from his rest at the base of the ice block. His hands were warm again, it was time to try getting out again. Bracing his weight, Bradd pushed with everything he had to move the sheet. No good. The block wouldn’t budge an inch.
A small pool of water was just beginning to form in the entrance to the cave proper as he watched. That complicates things, Bradd though. If I don’t get out in the next 15 or 20 minutes, I won’t at all.
Although, Bradd still wasn’t sure exactly where “out” would lead him, or if it was any better than this place.
Speaking of “this place,” the only thing Bradd knew about it was it was cold outside. For all he knew, the only reason he was still alive was that this cave was keeping him warm enough. Bradd mulled over that particular point for a bit, then decided to keep trying anyway. Here, it was certain he was a goner, outside might have a chance. Either he got out or he didn’t.
The water was filling the cave faster every minute. This was going to be his last try, whether he made it or not.
Bradd stepped back to the highest point the water had risen. Mentally preparing himself, Bradd launched himself at the ice at a dead sprint… only to have the ice explode quite violently just as he reached it. Ice chips flew everywhere, several hitting Bradd, and he felt them whip past his head and face. Unable to shop in time, Bradd practically flew out of the cave and skidded to a halt some distance from the entrance. Dazed and confused, he lay there, ears ringing and tiny cuts bleeding, staring at the psychedelic canvas that was the sky in this particular impossible place. Red to blue to green and no sun in sight. Bradd was abruptly struck by the absurd though of what rainbows would look like here.
A paradoxically guttural and melodious language ripped him from his dazed wonderings. “Ahrooth? The voice was deep and husky, not altogether unpleasant to listen to. “Ahmee, pheyn tiat.” Bradd had never heard anything like it before. “Sith ahroosh cwayt?”
Above him, a large face peered into his field of vision. A face almost as large as his torso. With a yelp, Bradd sat bolt upright and tried to push as far away from the giant as possible. The thing was gigantic! It had to have stood at least 20 feet tall at the shoulder. The face was human-like, only dozens of times larger than it should have been.
Almost amused looking, the creature pointed with a gargantuan, three fingered hand and muttered more of that unintelligible speech, “Siph cwayt ruhpth.”
Bradd cast a hasty glance over his shoulder, only to find himself less than ten feet form another brute. There was no way he could outrun these things, so Bradd just gave up. Only after the terror of the moment passed did Bradd realize these giants weren’t exactly trying to kill him.
“Ahrooth lehr?” the one behind him mumbled. Was it his imagination, or was that one higher pitched than the other?
“What?” Bradd, having never left the cozy confines of the known world, or the central United States, for that matter, had no idea what they were saying.
“Sish twelve lehr sicph lehr,” the deeper voice boomed. A pause, then,”Sicph pheyn gweyth, ohm liht. Sish shuhp sichp Zhwahndohst.”
“Ahf, pheyn tiat.” With that, the giants beckoned to Bradd. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he followed.
* * * * *
Jess lay staring at the ceiling. Time didn’t flow normally here, it seemed, and Jess had no idea how long she had been in here. Maybe it was just the complete and utter blackness that disrupted the passage of time to her. She did know she had missed some kind of meal if how hungry she was could be any indication.
A light from nowhere blinded her dark accustomed eyes. Blinded and startled, Jess bolted up and almost fell over from overbalancing. Jess slowly worked her eyes open to keep the light from making them ache too bad. All the while she was acutely aware of just how vulnerable she was, standing in the middle of a large open space while she pried her eyes open.
Silhouetted in the doorway was a creature she had never even heard of. It was a quadruped, covered in a bristly coat of brown fur. Gruesome, inch long claws dug into the dirt of the cell floor. The thing stood about five feet at the shoulder, leaving Jess peering into its face as she still tried shielding her eyes. There wasn’t a nose to be found on its face. A protruding jaw with a massive under bite held a vicious assortment of gleaming white teeth. All of this paled in comparison to the other feature of the animal. Its eyes were the size of her hand, solid black with a white pupil. It had no nose to speak of, but its eyes were spellbinding. No matter what she did, Jess couldn’t stop from being drawn back into those bottomless orbs.
Then her enchantment ended with shattering suddenness when the creature spoke with the sound of rustling leaves. With a grimace that Jess could only guess what meant, the creature strode into the room, stopping just short of her. Jess cringed away from it in a vain attempt the keep some distance between them.
Jess was totally surprised when the creature started speaking in broken English. “What… you?” The halting speech had a sibilant hiss to it, like a snake. “We called… nogsss.” Jess simply stood in dumbfounded silence as a creature she knew shouldn’t be able to speak tried to engage her in conversation.
The creature, this nog, spoke again, louder, more sure of itself with an unfamiliar language. “What… you?” This time, however, Jess found herself able to break the lock on her voice.
“I’m J--” she croaked, her voice cracking mid word. She cleared her throat before trying again. “I’m Jess,” she squeaked.
“Jess…” the nog hissed, and a wicked, chilling grin spread across its flat face.
Notes:
1) I am not good at explaining what happens when nothing is actually happening. When Jess is just sitting in the “cell,” I go mad trying to make it long enough to be worth reading, but not so redundant as to be irritating.
2) Say hi to biome number two. No single-biome worlds (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SingleBiomePlanet) for me.
3) The giant speech has a method to its seeming madness. However, I will be incredibly impressed if anyone can figure out what they are saying. That’s for later. Right now, the speech is just there to give a bigger indication of how alien this place is.
4) Not all of the world is this colorful, just some places. I’ll write those in later.
5) My first real bit of originality falls into this part. I haven’t seen “nogs” in shape or in name in any other fantasy world. Yay!
6) You know, I didn’t plan it this way, but the nogs are actually speaking much like the giants would be if the speech were translated literally. I was having issues with tenses and forms of the word “be,” so it lacks explicit mention of am, is, are, was, were, etc. Still, it’s passable, and it’s fun to see if a language can function without those. I think I can fix the tenses with a simple suffix or prefix (leaning toward prefix to be different).
7) This part ended up shorter than I expected, shorter even than part 1. Well, that part seemed like as good a part as any to stop. Starting the next part now.
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Hm... I'm guessing these Nogs are not tool users, as they seem to lack hands. Also, Should I try to figure out the biology of having black eyes with white pupils or just say a wizard did it (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AWizardDidIt)? This is by no means meant to be discouraging, please keep writing.
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A(n)
wizard author did it. :P
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Authorial fiat is a powerful tool, wield it carefully. :P
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If I may say so, your style of writing reminds me a lot of Dean Koontz's work. I mean this in a good way; he's one of my favorite authors. Both of you appear to enjoy experimenting with things that are somewhat magical/otherworldly, at the same time with vivid scenery, language puzzles, and mystery and suspense.
Can't wait to read more! :)
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Okay, just finishing up typing part three. Before posting, I'd had most of the story up to part two in my head before I started writing. After that, the story was a blank page. Following far too long after, part three should be up momentarily (damn finals).
EDIT: And here it is:
Be Warned (Chapter III)
Bradd was very thoroughly out of breath by the time the giants decided to stop for a rest. Although for them the pace had only been a brisk walk, in order to keep up Bradd had to run just short of sprinting. The giants seemed completely unaware of his difficulty.
Just as he managed to stop gasping for air, the giants started up again. With an exasperated sight, Bradd jogged to catch back up with them. One of the giants, the higher pitched one, who Bradd guessed was female, turned to check on his progress, and apparently found it lacking. “Tzehooth shuhp?”
“I’ll be fine,” Bradd gasped out. He really needed to execise more often, if this was how days passed here. Several stops went by before Bradd realized the implications of his response. It had actually been a response, not just a confused question. Thinking back, he realized that he knew what the giant had said. Maybe not the exact words, but the meaning behind them was clear. What was happening here? Not only was Bradd in a totally different world (or coma, but that hardly mattered now), he could somehow understand the meaning behind a language that, to the best of his knowledge, no other human had ever heard.
All while these thoughts raced through Bradd’s head, the strange troop continued on. Where before had been nothing buy small hills over the horizon, mountain peaks now jutted into the open sky. The snow covered tops hardly cleared the hills in front of them, but even from this distance, Bradd could see their immense size. The mountains loomed ever larger as the light dimmed.
When the light reached the level of sunset back home (at Bradd’s best guess) the giant in the lead raised a hand, signaling a rest. Bradd, exhausted from the grueling, giant-sized pace, almost collapsed in relief. “Sicph ruhp tiat chrohmm,” the poing bellowed.
“How the heck can I even understand them at all?” Bradd muttered. He couldn’t speak the language or read it, assuming it was written, but he understood perfectly that they were stopping here tonight. Without getting up, he asked no-one in particular, “Where are we even going?”
“Sicph phayn Zhwahndohst,” one of the giants offered, as if that explained everything. The other nodded in agreement, and both began constructing a rudimentary camp, clearing patches of ground of any obstacles. Both were asleep within minutes of completing a rough bed on the ground and a small campfire, which caught Bradd by surprise. He hadn’t seen them with any fuel, nor did he see them actually light the thing. Upon a closer look, Bradd found the fire burning nothing, as if it were just there.
With the trek ended for the day, Bradd had nothing to do, and his thoughts wandered. I wonder where Jess is. She wasn’t in the cave, and quite obviously not here. As the stars emerged in silent glory, much closer than back home, and much brighter, he fell into an exhausted sleep.
* * * * *
A phalanx of nogs “escorted” Jess out of her recent home. No reason was given for the escort, and she figured they wouldn’t tell her if she asked, assuming they could understand her at all. Wherever they were going had to be at least halfway important, by the ornamentation of her guards. All but the one who first spoke to her had some kind of silvery armor, worked very finely into a perfect fit on every single body.
Jess’s mind boggled at the size of the room she entered as she finally exited that cell. The ceiling rose sharply in a room that formed a concentric ring around the cell. Another ten meters lay between Jess and the door, with several flights of ramps lining the wall. Each led to a higher floor, and the core, where she had just exited, was ringed by walkways, catwalks and platforms. Doors opened into it constantly; nogs rushed in and out. (her cell must not have been very tall, judging by the height of the next level). All things considered, the place looking like a beehive, full of activity.
As Jess took in the hustle and bustle, the guards led her to an excessively ornamented door. With a groan of aged wood, the high, heavy doors swung open. Although the chamber was substantially brighter than the pitch darkness of her cage, jess still had to avert her eyes as light spilled in. Actual sunlight, sunlight that Jess had not seen for however long she had been stuck here, wherever here was, streamed through the enormous opening.
Her eyes adjusted, and despite the unreality of everything that had happened up to this point, Jess gasped at the most incredible and exotic sight she had ever laid eyes on. Suspended among, between and carved into massive trees was a city. At her best guess, the city stretched a few kilometers in any direction. Normally, due to how spaced the trees were, that wouldn’t mean very much. However, since they were trees, and not hills, the city spread it self over a hundred meters vertically as well.
Jess was interrupted in her marveling by an icy push forward. So cold was the touch that Jess gave a little yelp of shock. Looking back, Jess saw a nog gesture out the door. Her hand must have been made of ice to be so cold.
The formation shifted to lead Jess to a rope bridge. The whole thing looked about five feet at its widest. There was no way the whole group could get across at once. Nevertheless, Jess and her escort marched to it.
Something about this whole place was messing with Jess’s perceptions. Maybe the vast change in scale was to blame. Whatever the reason, the rickety catwalk she had seen before had somehow inexplicably become the size of an old country highway. Now the entire column could fit abreast with room to spare!
To take her mind off of impossible things like the bridge, Jess let her mind wander, and just walked along.
Following the ebb and flow of random thoughts was soothing. Many minutes passed in silence before one random thought caught hold enough to stay a few minutes. She had been imagining a perfect countryside, and saw herself in the middle of it, as if watching from someone else’s eyes. The light was perfect, glinting off a small pond, and leaves rustled ever so slightly. Too soon, she realized she had forgotten about the present oddity, and reluctantly let the image fade… almost.
Jess opened her eyes and noticed they were to the end of the bridge. She saw a door, beautifully crafted, carved, gilded, and adorned with any other kind of decoration she could name, and then some. She also saw… herself, from that same angle as in her mind.
There was no time for questions as she was hurried through the ornate portal. Jess stepped into a chamber in the tree, and watched as she entered the room, and watched as she stepped through the door.
A pedestal grown out of the inside of the tree rose from the floor opposite her. On it sat a nog of gargantuan stature. He must have risen three meters from the ground at the shoulder. She saw that the silvery armor on this one encompassed almost its whole body. Jess stared at it, and she saw it stare back at her.
“You are Jessss,” Its first words were no a question. “How did you come to be here?” Not a waver disturbed a voice that was somehow both rumbled and hissed at the same time.
Reality crashed in on Jess all at once. All she wanted to do was curl up in a tiny ball on the floor, or magically wake up in her bed back home or something! Closing her eyes didn’t help at al because she could still see herself as if from across the room.
“I asssked you a quesssstion!” A dull ringing crept into Jess’s ears, and her limbs filled with lead. A tunnel wrapper her vision until she could only see the nog… and herself. She felt pressured, as if by a bad head cold. The ringing became a thunderous booming, loud enough to make the nog’s crashing voice seem small and tinny.
“Answer me!” it roared, as Jess collapsed into blessed unconsciousness.
Still to be continued.
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Blaaah, you left us with another cliffhanger. D:
Can't wait for more. :):yes:
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What he said.
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Okay, long break from this. I've actually gotten more written on the story that opens the thread, but I'll try to post that later. For now, a change of pace that I wrote-up while playing a rather long BattleTech game on MegaMek. Enjoy. (Note: Characters are introduced once by full name, then referred to by callsign.)
Alright, listen up men. We’ve been assigned to conduct the combat-eval run of the Light Combat Quad fighting vehicle. Piretti, your team is being augmented by a single one of these units for the duration of the sortie. Specialist Adolphos Baum will be piloting the vehicle, if that name means anything to you. He will hold no command authority in this sortie. If all goes well, we won’t be engaging in too dire a combat. Recon elements have spotted an enemy team in the area. Intelligence is pretty certain it’s nothing more spectacular than a light combat/recon team. Current weather conditions are overcast, light rain. Wind minimal. Start your patrol in the northwest, and swing south. Your turnaround point is a waypoint approximately twenty five kilometers from this position. Reconnoiter the area around the waypoint, then depart the patrol area to the northeast. Good luck, and good hunting pilots.
Combat Eval Team, 03rd Light Combat Team, Dyson’s Dragoons (Regular/Reliable)
Team Leader:
Name/Rank: Lt. Leonardo Piretti (3/5)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Funeral”
Callsign: Pyre
Team Second:
Name/Rank: Sgt. Enrico Dominguez. (4/5)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Domino”
Callsign: Tycoon
Regulars:
Name/Rank: Pvt. Andrea Panas (3/6)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1B “Hurricane”
Callsign: Storm
Name/Rank: Pvt. Alfredo Montoya (4/5)
Vehicle: Light Skirmish Biped LSB-1A “Epee”
Callsign: Fence
Name/Rank: Pvt. Eric de Vries (3/4)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1C “Point”
Callsign: Blackout
Combat Eval Pilot:
Name/Rank: Spc. Adolphos Baum (4/5)
Vehicle: Light Combat Quad LCQ-1A “Pegasus”
Callsign: Jester
OpFor Combat Team, 15th Strike Team, O’Connor’s Ospreys (Green/Reliable)
Team Leader:
Name/Rank: TLd. Duncan MacGuffin (3/5)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Tower”
Callsign: Gryphon
Team Second:
Name/Rank: XO. Adair Cameron (6/6)
Vehicle: Light Combat Biped LCB-1A “Stiletto”
Callsign: Duke
Regulars:
Name/Rank: Hsr (5). Dustin McCloud (4/6)
Vehicle: Light Skirmish Biped LSB-1A “Peregrine”
Callsign: Zephyr
Name/Rank: Sct (5). Tavis Cullen (5/5)
Vehicle: Light Reconnaissance Biped LRB-1A “Hawkeye”
Callsign: Eagle
Name/Rank: Sct (5). Arthur McKeon (4/5)
Vehicle: Light Reconnaissance Biped LRB-1A “Camelot”
Callsign: Lancer
* * * * *
Sgt. Enrico “Tycoon” Dominguez carefully stepped out of the small river, along with the rest of the 03rd Light Combat Team, Dyson’s Dragoons. Wary, hardened eyes scanned the horizon and the heavily wooded terrain before him as the unit trudged on. Supposedly, there was an enemy combat team out here, but Intel wasn’t exactly known as the most reliable thing to ever exist. Tycoon noticed the unit’s resident skirmisher (basically a slightly faster combat model to harass enemy mainline units and keep them from getting a breather) was pulling a little wide. “Hey, Fence, pull it in a little. You drop off the scope, I’m not coming back for ya.”
Pvt. Afredo “Fence” Montoya grumbled an affirmative into his mic. Patrol duty was so boring; nothing ever happened. And they had to drag around this new quad design until they finished, that was just wonderful. He was ready to give just about anything to get a taste of com-- “Contact!” The words sprang almost involuntarily from his throat, he wanted to say that so much. “Approximately 750 meters south-southeast. Single contact, fast mover.”
Scout 5th Class Arthur “Lancer” McKeon swore under his breath. They’d spotted him, and too early to spring the ambush his team leader had tried to set up when his extended-range sensors first picked up the advancing team. He gunned the throttle on his Light Recon vehicle and attempted to salvage at least a little of the situation by pulling at least a couple of the enemy units off the rest of his team.
Lt. Leonardo “Pyre” Piretti gripped the control yoke of his vehicle, “Funeral,” as his pulse began to raise. A lone enemy scout had just appeared under a kilometer from the team’s position, just outside of range. In the heavily wooded terrain, the slow combat units had a chance to catch the nimble scout before it reported back. Five other upright, multi-ton walking tanks strode on either side of him, crashing through the undergrowth as a light drizzle fell onto his canopy. Only one enemy target presented itself, so Pyre needed give no orders. Inexorably closing the distance, Pyre caught himself counting down to when he would finally be able to unleash the man-made lightning from his weapons, replacing trees with burning wreckage and the enemy scout with super-heated metal.
TLd. Duncan “Gryphon” MacGuffin signaled his other Light Combat unit and his Light Skirmisher to rejoin his position. Coming at him were a full combat team with a tagalong too. He didn’t have the firepower under his command to directly engage the entire force at once. He had to separate them some how. Lancer had apparently realized this too and was even now attempting to pull some enemy units away from the upcoming engagement. A few seconds later, Gryphon ordered his other scout to join Lancer is his diversion. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to take out an opposing unit with those scouts, especially if the other managed to stay hidden until close range.
“Dammit!” shouted Pvt. Eric “Blackout” de Vries the second time his vehicle bogged down in the swampy marshes. The scout was going to get away at this rate! With a snarl and a renewed effort, Blackout tore the vehicle’s leg out of the muddy ground and ran after the scout. He was the best pilot in the outfit, and he’d be damned before that pipsqueak Fence in his skirmish unit got the kill before he did.
Fence was just turning to go after the scout when a far off glint caught his eye. Focusing on the area in question, he saw a carefully moving vehicle, trying to avoid being seen setting up in an ambush position. “Sir! Enemy contacts setting up an ambush position 1 kilometer south of here. Looks like a pair of Light Combat units.”
Pyre mulled over this new information. “Acknowledged. Continue pursuit of the scout. All other units, close range with identified ambush position.” There was something to be said of deception in warfare, but sometimes preponderance of firepower was all that mattered, and he had that in spades compared to this rag-tag skirmish team.
Gryphon felt the sweat start beading on his brow, despite the relatively cool temperature of the swamp. It all came down to this. If the enemy force didn’t separate even a little bit before reaching him, he would have to call a retreat or be overwhelmed. In a classroom, he would have failed the student who proposed calmly waiting for a larger, better equipped force to bear down on a light unit without preparing somehow. Seconds trickled by. If the force didn’t break soon, he would be forced. There! One of the enemy combat units was gaining too much of a lead on the others. It was now or never.
Tycoon swore mightily when the first hit rocked his vehicle. The ambushers had moved their position forward since the last sighting, and managed to still carry out the ambush because he’d gotten careless. More fire pounded into the trees all around him. He could feel every hit, and he gripped his control yoke tighter with every one. A bolt of man-made lightning impacted the right gun mounts of his ride, and his mouth thinned as his HUD flashed a “ARMOR BREACHED” warning across his visor. The faintest threads of worry began to cross his mind as all of his return fire merely scorched trees.
As soon as XO Adair “Duke” Cameron saw his commander’s ride’s leg sink into the soft earth of the swamp, he knew he was in trouble. Getting bogged down in the middle of a raging firefight was a stupid was to get shot down. “Sir! Pull back, you’re going to get yourself killed if you keep advancing.”
Gryphon, despite the dire circumstances, felt a smile tugging at his mouth at his XO’s words, but only for a moment. “Concentrate all fire on the first enemy vehicle! When it goes down, we fall back.” Fountains of fire burst from the weapon emplacements on the three vehicles. Machine guns blazed, and artificial lightning crackled through the woods. Beams of coherent light lanced through the air, boiling armor from its housing. Mere seconds later, the subject of the brutal bombardment lost its arm in a spectacular explosion that knocked the vehicle from its feet. “That’s it! Withdrawn at the soonest opportunity. Keep firing until they stop advancing.” As he spoke, Gryphon’s vehicle was rocked with even more fire than the enemy, but he miraculously managed to keep his footing.
Tycoon barely managed to keep from smashing his head against the displays on Domino’s control panel as he plummeted to the ground. He stifled a groan as he realized the particle cannon that had been mounted on the Domino’s right side was a pile of useless scrap now. Guess it would have to be done with regular lasers now.
Pvt. Andrea “Storm” Panas saw her Team Second go down and moved immediately to support his recovery. As she did, she saw Jester and her commander make a break for the other side of cover, closer to the enemy units. She and most of the rest of the team present pumped huge volumes of fire into the enemy vehicle still stranded in the bog after the other broke free by engaging his jump jets. The combined volume of fire produced several alluring explosions in the left side of the vehicle as something not-insignificant ruptured under ballistic duress. The crippling fire washed over it, and the vehicle fell.
Blackout rushed from cover to the newly uncovered enemy scouts. Two of them, it turned out, but numbers mattered little, at least until he started to see between four and eight of them for several seconds after a glancing hit to his cockpit. Even with starry vision, Blackout managed to land hits with all three of his weapons systems, causing molten metal to run in rivulets down the enemy scout. A small puff of flame told him that a hit had even punctured the enemy’s armor, even if nothing important had been hit. The enemy scout took the hits and just kept coming, and Blackout started to entertain doubts about rushing out of cover to engage.
Harasser 5th Class Dustin “Zephyr” McCloud felt the stirrings of panic as the enemy pounded his vehicle into the ground. His head smacked the overhead displays, and stars danced before his eyes, all while fire continued to pour from the enemy team. Confronted with the very real possibility of death, Zephyr reached down and punched the ejection lever. “I’m punching out!” he yelled as his cockpit rocketed from the crumpling chassis of his skirmisher unit. Though better than death, ejecting still knocked him around quite a bit, and stars danced before his eyes again before he landed.
Fatigue was creeping up on all of them. Combat was not kind to people, even if no fire was actually taken. Somewhere in the back of Scout 5th Class Tavis “Eagle” Cullen’s mind, the thought passed, and was then forgotten in the furious hail of laser fire surrounding the space his vehicle occupied. Fortunately, most of the fire whizzing through the air missed his vehicle. This was getting ridiculous. Neither of the two scouts were equipped to deal with a skirmish unit by themselves, much less a skirmish unit and a combat unit. “Lancer, I’m buggin’ out!”
Lancer was thinking much along the same lines when Eagle commed him. “Roger tha’, breaking contact now.” With a final kick at the back of the enemy skirmish unit, both scouts sped for safety. “Link up after we lose these blighters.”
Gryphon was fairly certain they’d broken LOS between the enemy units. Without a scout of their own, they wouldn’t find them again. “Duke, link up with me, and we’ll try and rejoin Lancer and Eagle in a few minutes. Poor Zephyr, I hope they’re kind to the kid.” All Duke could do was nod solemnly within his cockpit.
Pyre was satisfied with the results of the sortie. “Command, one enemy Light Skirmish lance routed, confirmed one vehicle disabled. Moderate damage to one combat unit. Enemy units have broken contact and are fleeing. Returning to base with one captured pilot and vehicle.” Looping the tow cables around the new quad vehicle, the re-united team, with an additional passenger, made tracks for their home base. A quick check of the rest of the teams’ status forced a sigh from his lips. Fence had better not mind getting home late.
Fence was actually enjoying this fight, for once. He was the subject of very little attention. That is, until the scouts made the break. Fence was suddenly the subject of six medium size lasers and a kick. The kick alone was enough to send him toppling, and toppling took off his vehicle’s right leg at the knee. By the time he got back up, both scouts were long gone. “Sir, I’ve got a little problem here. I’m seeing stars, and Epee isn’t doing so hot in the mobility department anymore.”
Comments? Questions?
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Ducking back in here after a little more than a month, does no one have any comments for that piece? Is it so good it doesn't need comments, or is it so bad no-one bothered writing comments for such a piece of filth?
Side note: I might have the next installment of Be Warned up in the next couple of weeks. I've got a few pages written, but nothing typed up yet.
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Well, the rapid POV shifts and interchangeable personas make it hard to get attached to any of the characters, and the nature of the action provides plenty of detail but little reason to care.
By nature I think these types of AARs work better written from an out-of-universe perspective; that way you can talk about your opponents and use the actual players as characters.
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The big problem with that in this case was that everything was me. I was playing both groups. Makes it difficult (or at least very pretentious) to talk out-of-universe about opposing players when it's me.
I don't think I'll be doing another like it, since stopping the game to do the fiction write up made it take quite a bit longer than it would have otherwise.
Now, back to Be Warned. I think something might actually happen this time!
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That didn't take near as long as I thought it would. Then again, this is probably a fair deal shorter than any of the chapters posted above. It's about three and a half pages on my word document. Oh well. Enjoy Part IV of Be Warned:
______________________________________________________________ _____________________
When Bradd awoke, the camp was already mostly gone. Both giants hurried about, clearing the “fire” pit, and generally making sure it looked as though no-one had ever camped there. The smaller giant saw he was awake, and lifted its hand through a lazy upward arc, beckoning to him. The gesture looked oddly natural despite being performed by a being a dozen times his size.
“Pheyth tiat, sihcph twent, shuhp. Zhwandost kyirht gw-eyth.”
“Right. Long way to go. Just give me a minutes to get up.” Bradd groaned as he rose, sore muscles protesting every move he made. His whole body ached form yesterday’s march.
The giants, however, didn’t seem to suffer from that particular shortcoming. Bradd was barely on his feet before they were on the move again. We weary sigh later, he ran to catch up.
Bradd would never be completely sure what happened next. One minute, the odd troop was marching along, mountain peaks rising above the horizon slowly but surely. The next, a group of a half dozen large blurs burst from the frozen ground as if it were tissue paper.
The blurs, Bradd supposed they were creatures of some kind, moved blindingly fast, despite their size. The same was true of the giants, who leapt to meet the sudden challenge. For what seemed like minutes, but was probably little more than a few seconds, Bradd felt as if someone had hit the fast forward button on the world. Large blurs grappled with even larger blurs in a dance that seem too graceful and smooth to be real.
Bradd snapped out of his daze to see blood staining the frozen ground. One of the attacking creatures hung limp on a rock, eyes staring sightlessly from a neck craned at an unnatural angle. It had six limbs, all of what appeared to be legs, and all capped by a foot the size of his head, complete with wickedly scythed claws. Pebbly grey skin made it hard for him to see clearly, even when the creature was motionless.
Without warning, a blood chilling screech tore through the air, almost doubling Bradd over with its intensity as he tried to protect his ears. The horrible sound made him dizzy, and by the time he could stand up reliably, all the creatures were gone, including the one Bradd had been looking at.
“Pheyth tiaht!” came an urgent rumble from behind him. “Ahmee nahnt neyraht!” Bradd turned to see a giant prone on the ground, blood staining the already disturbed snow. The residual dizziness from the shriek and the sight of so much blood threatened to send Bradd tumbling to the ground. A deep-seated nausea rose in him as he became aware of the smell. It was all he could do to not keel over and vomit his guts out.
“Shohm!” the still-standing giant roared, shocking Bradd back to his sense. “Sith lah-spihrtohrt tiaht,” it continued, gesturing to its friend’s side.
Bradd got the point. Doing as he was instructed, Bradd placed his hands over the indicated area. Immediately, a new wave of nausea threatened to overtake him. He could feel the wound below him, as if it were his own. A dull pounding filled his ears, and he began to feel lightheaded.
The giant, who, Bradd realize in a moment of absurdly insignificant clarity, had never given his name, readied himself for whatever was going to happen. “Drahph pheyth!” The command was given so forcefully, Bradd obeyed without thinking, freezing right where he was.
All of a sudden, time seemed to slow. Bradd could count the seconds between each of his own heartbeats, which thundered in his ears, still elevated from the fight. He looked to the giant below him, and his eyes tracked ever so slowly to her wound. It was still there, but if Bradd wasn’t dreaming, it didn’t look as bad as before.
He wrenched his eyes from the gash and back to the unnamed giant. Bradd was surprised to see a look of almost pained concentration on his face, and what looked to be sweat from exertion pouring down the giant’s body. He looked to be at the breaking point of whatever it is he was doing.
As if noticing the giant’s exertion was the trigger for his own, Bradd suddenly felt a great weight settle on him. He immediately felt as if he had sprinted a mile full out. His arms trembled, and sweat now coated his own brow. For two dozen agonizing heartbeats, the pressure built, and built, and built, and… was gone, just like that.
Bradd let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and gulped fresh air like a fish out of water. Nearly a minute passed before he could get to his feat without nearly falling all over himself. When he could finally stand, he looked down to the wounded giant. Or, at least, he thought he did. When his eyes net the new, pale flesh where before had been a bleeding gash, he gasped in shock.
“What?! How?!” he veritably exploded. “It was there just a…” Bradd may not have been in the top of his class, back home, but he wasn’t stupid. He read popular fiction to form a quick guess about what happened. Magic. It had to be.
He turned away from the still prone giant, and weariness hit him all at once. The fading light only added to his already almost overwhelming exhaustion. Wait, fading? Bradd dragged his head up, and looked at where the sun had been in the sky when the attack had started, what felt like hours ago. It was on the other side of the sky. So… it really was hours ago. Somehow the realization only deepened his fatigue. Now he was struggling to keep his eyes open.
Ahmee was just managing to lift herself from the ground. She looked exhausted too, as did the still-unnamed giant. Even though hours had likely passed since the attack, both seemed to be in a great hurry to get away from the site. Bradd tried to follow them, but his legs weren’t responding to well to his mind. They felt like lead, and he could hardly move them. When he tried to hurry up, he nearly pitched forward. Ahmee noticed his trouble, and hefted him up and carried him bodily on their way.
Free from his slow pace on the ground, both giants were now able to break into a run, covering much greater distances on their way to wherever their destination was. Still utterly exhausted, Bradd was unable to stay awake, even with the frenzied pace the giants took, and soon fell asleep. The giants ran through the night, stopping only for short rests here and there. Bradd slept peacefully through it all. When he did wake, brought back to consciousness by the sun peeking over the snowy mountaintops, it was to a sight he never even imagined.
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You know what's awesome? Fallout. You know what would make Fallout 20% cooler? My Little Pony.
There's already a God-tier/length fic on the internet about Fallout crossed with Ponies, this is just my little sidestory to it. Enjoy.
Friendship is Power
Chapter One: Blood Ties
“Blood, as all ponies know, than water's thicker/ But water's wider, thank Celestia, than blood.”
Living in a Stable is hard. I mean, I know that objectively, somepony out there has it worse than I do. A lot worse, but it's hard to keep running that through my head in the middle of a long shift, tending the lonely, almost forgotten lounge in the deep recesses of Stable 20. I work the bar, you see, and spend all of my time waiting on customers that spend all their time trading with the local settlements, or rooting out the small, isolated groups of raiders in the hills around the Stable entrance. Fun stuff. Interesting stuff. I get maybe four ponies a day in here. Maybe. It's an exercise in patience that I always lose, electing to take a nap instead of stare at the door waiting hopelessly for a customer.
But wait, you ask yourself, what kind of Stable has a bar in it, of all things? Well, Stable 20 had much more than just a bar. It also had an indoor swimming facility, a gymnasium, fully equipped bathhouse, and auditorium. It was a “luxury” Stable, or was as close to being one as any other Stable I've ever heard of. Of course, that meant a lower than average population for the same space, but I digress.
Our Stable had been open and trading with the rest of the Wasteland for almost a decade. We were Stable ponies. Strong, able-bodied, well-supplied. We traded food and water, the two things we could always get more of, for guns and ammo and armor. Ponies came and went as they pleased, for the most part. Some joined us from the neighboring towns, some left to find their fortune, some were born, some died. Population was more or less constant. It was the next best thing to a fortress our corner of the wastes ever saw. The guards knew each other, had worked together for years, and could kick any wanna be raider's ass twice before they could even think about it once. Friendship is power, and we knew it.
Unfortunately for us, we weren't the only ponies to figure that out.
Oh, how rude of me. I've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is Mint Julep, but everyone who's known me for any length of time just calls me Julie. It's something of a running joke with my regulars. Most of them always order a mint jelup to start the evening, and always make a crack at my name. I'm just glad I don't look exactly like one. Mint blue with a forest green mane and eyes that match my coat make it a little irritating, though. It's a close enough match to be funny. The first dozen times, at least. At least my cutie mark is a martini glass complete with olive instead of a mint garnish. My quarters were actually connected to the bar, and I was the only one who ran it, so I spend the vast majority of my time sitting behind the counter. I left for meals and a thrice weekly exercise regimen and didn't say anything to anypony unless they talked first. They never did, and I lived my life all but friendless and eventless.
Like I said, I work the bar. It's hard stuff, staring at walls. I wished my life was more interesting. I wished my life was more exciting. I wished it was anywhere but here, anywhere but mixing the same drink for the same two ponies everyday. I had no idea just how horribly right my wish was going to go....
* * * * * *
I woke from a particularly relaxing nap to the angry sound of a blaring alarm klaxon. I could hear... something echoing down the halls. It wasn't on this level, no, it had to be at least two levels up. That meant whatever it was was really, really loud if it was going through three meters of air and steel. I was still wondering what the blazes it could be when a quartet of shouting ponies rounded the corner and charged into the bar. Two of them came in dragging a third, with the fourth levitating some bag or sac or something alongside.
“Hey, what's going on up there?” I asked, this whole happening still little but a curiousity. They were clearly worked up over something, but I had no idea what, and it didn't excuse them from barging in like this so rowdy and loud.
“Clear a table, now!” the one levitating the... whatever it was, yelled at me. I froze for a second, the shock at being so rudely ordered around not doing anything to help my blossoming confusion.
“I beg your pardon? I asked you a question!”
The unicorn, the only unicorn of the bunch, gave me a piercing glare. “NOW!” That did it. A quick flash of my horn (I'm a unicorn, if you just missed it) shoved everything on the table closest to the door to the floor with a crash. The two carriers hefted their cargo up onto the newly cleared surface, and I finally got a good look at who they were carrying.
It was Ratchel. My best and only friend Ratchel. Ratchel, and a lot of blood. A whole lot of blood. “Goddesses! Ratchel! What happened?” The blood, more blood than I ever wanted to see, spilled over the edge of the table, splattering the spotless floor in a macabre inkblot pattern. I couldn't even tell if Ratchel was still breathing. A small, tinny voice in the back of my head was *****ing about how irritating cleaning this up was going to be, but I stomped it out as hard as I could before it got out of hand.
The unicorn didn't waste any time explaining. “Raiders. Hit the entrance, cut through to the cafeteria and the armory in minutes. Infirmary is full of them, and there are going to be more ponies coming in here. I need you to clear the rest of these tables and keep the floor clean so we can work.”
“Raiders?” I gulped, a feeling of dread spreading from the pit of my stomach to the rest of me. “Are they going to reach us down here?” An entirely justified feeling of panic was very quickly shutting down my basic thought processes.
“Hey! Stay with me. Clear these tables. Now.” That voice was... I don't know how to describe it. It was simultaneously compelling and conforting. Even a demand like that, the likes of which I would never suffer silently on a normal day, soothed my nerves. I found myself responding to the command instantly, horn flashing, dishes crashing to the floor.
The stench is always what bothers me most. It sticks to everything it touches, cloying the air, invading every space it can reach with the smell of blood and death. My bar became a grim picture of the worst the Wasteland could do in a matter of minutes. I didn't think I would ever be able to sit behind the counter again and mix a drink without seeing my bar as the portrait of hell it was. I knew, right then, that I would never be able to let this go unanswered. There were a dozen ponies on my tables, on the floor, wherever they would fit, their blood leaking from their bodies as nurses and doctors frantically tried to identify those with injuries serious enough to warrant a healing potion, and those that could be treated with a few stitches and a bit of antiseptic. From what I could see, almost all of them needed potions. Most of them never got one, and a lot of them didn't make it.
In the middle of this carnage, mopping the new coat of crimson paint from the floors, my coat specked with blood, sweat, and tears, I realized something. I was a stranger in my own Stable. Aside from Ratchel, I recognized maybe two other ponies sprawled out in my lounge, neither of them by name. I didn't know the doctors. I didn't know the nurses. I didn't know anyone. I felt like I didn't know anything. There was just one thing that I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt: the raiders had to pay. They had to pay, and I was going to make them.
The Stable was normally well stocked, but one of the places the raiders targeted first was the infirmary. The health potions we could use were limited to personal stashes and first aid stations in the halls. In other words, not near enough. I stayed up through the night, tending to the wounded and sometimes dying ponies that I didn't know but should. I'll never forget the moans and whimpers, each one feeling like a personal condemnation. Like I should have been up there with them, like I should have know what was going on while there was still enough time to help.
Ratchel died before they got a healing potion to her. The rest of my friends and the bar's regulars I had no news on. In the utter chaos of the situation, I couldn't get a good answer out of anypony. I drifted between groups of ponies, some injured, some not, all panicked and scared and irrational. None of them knew what to do next.
I needed to find the overmare. She would know what to do. I had to find her, and she would tell me exactly what I could do to help the Stable. I felt like I needed to help. Needed to make up for sleeping through most of the attack. Needed to make up for being useless. There was just one major problem with that plan.
The Overmare was gone.
No one knew for sure what had happened to her. She was still alive and in the Stable, but hiding away. No, she was dead and her body hadn't been found. No, she'd abandoned the Stable and led the raiders here. No, she'd been taken by raiders, for Goddesses know what reason. One senile old buck even claimed that an alicorn had taken her away before the fighting. An alicorn! The Goddesses had left Equestria 200 years prior, and he expected me to believe that one of them had come back? There were other rumors, even more fantastic and nonsensical tales that I gave even less passing interest to.
Still, they all agreed that in some way or another, she was unavailable. Not good. But I was not so easily shaken from my quest. I was going to help this Stable. I had to, for the ponies I didn't know and would now never know. Ponies who had never known I existed, or cared if they did. I was tired of being a drain, an insignificant speck at the bottom of the Stable. I took a moment to run through my options. What pony here would know what to do?
The unicorn! The one with the commanding voice, he would know what to do. I had to find him. I made my way up to the top level of the Stable, to the Overmare's office. I could start there and make my way down.
I immediately regretted my decision when I stepped into hallway outside of the real infirmary. It made what my bar had been turned into look immaculate in its cleanliness. I recoiled in horror as I realized that some of the lumps on the floor were pieces of ponies. Maybe even a pony I had known. The stench was even worse. Blood and death mixed with filth and bile and everything the raiders brought with them.
It was more than enough. I vomited. I had to get away from that vile pit. I practically galloped the rest of the way to the Overmare's office, and it still wasn't enough to avoid glimpses of the horror that filled the halls. Even a low population Stable had a lot of ponies, and raiders have a variety of ways of dealing with a 'surplus.' I finally broke out of the area the raiders had managed to claim before leaving, finally able to get out of that slaughterhouse.
Once I got out, the stench abated enough that I could breathe. I found myself in the upper level dormitories. The entire level seemed deserted. I could see why, being so close to that horror even if I couldn't see it set me on edge. I set off for the Overmare's office. It was luckily located at the other end of the dorms, so I wouldn't have to go back through that hell.
I got lucky, and the unicorn was in the first place I looked. He looked terrible. Ragged mane, haggard eyes, and a blood-stained coat told me he hadn't slept or refreshed himself since the incident. The sight of him, obviously miserable and desperate for rest, almost made me wait until tomorrow. Almost.
“Sir...” I trailed off. I didn't even know his name. A spike of trepidation almost made me back away and slink back to my little den. No, I was going to do this, Celestia dammit! I cleared my throat and started again. “I want to help.”
Wow. That sounded lame. The image of myself as a hero that had been slowly building faded in the awkward silence that ensued. The unicorn colt simply stared at me, as if he hadn't even heard what I said. “Sir?” That seemed to break him from his silence.
It wasn't exactly the response I expected. “Seriously?” his expression brightened, “it's about time somepony decided they wanted to actually help instead of just ***** and moan about how they should get special treatment while the Overmare is gone. I don't know how she handles it.” His smile faded slightly. “But now I have to, until she turns up again.” He stood up, wobbling slightly, exhaustion clearly evident in his posture and movements.
“If you really want to help, we need to find where those raiders went. They took everything they could get their grubby hooves on before scooting on out of here. Food, guns, medical supplies. Everything.” He paused for a second, gathering his thoughts, or maybe waiting to see if I would say anything. I didn't, too focused on the state of the Stable that I had until recently completely ignored. “That means we're in a bad spot. A really bad one. No food, we starve. No guns, the next time they come back, we won't escape with anything. No medicine, we get sick and die or the ones that get wounded eventually die. That means we need to get it all back, somehow. What I need you to do is track the raiders back to where they took our stuff, miss...?” He trailed off, waiting for an answer.
“Julep. Mint Julep, but everyone who knows me calls me Julie,” I replied, and realized that I didn't know his name either. “And what's your name?”
He shook his head quickly. “It's unimportant. Call me Doc for now.” Any protest I mustered died on my lips at the look he gave me. I felt the echo of this kind of... cloudiness permeating my thoughts. You know, it really was unimportant all things considered. He saw my reaction (or rather lackthereof) and gave a curt nod before continuing, “Good. Now, Miss Julep, I need you to find the raider camp in the wastes. Normally I'd send someone who knows the area, or at the very least which end of a gun the bullets come out of, but security took a beating in the attack. You're quite simply the only pony in this vault that's come forward to help, and I need all of security here in case they come back.”
That took even dull thoughts aback. The only pony? Really? I started to have my doubts. Were these ponies worth helping? Just how much did I not know about this Stable? “But... how am I going to find the raider camp? I've never been outside this vault before.”
“Trust me, you'll be able to find them. I want you to go see Officer Buckton and get outfitted for the wastes. He should have a pistol or something you can have. I'm not about to send you out there unarmed. It's very important to me that we not lose as many ponies as we possibly can, you included.”
Just who was this pony? In a matter of minutes, using nothing but his voice, he had given me direction, purpose, and the means to make a difference. There was no way I could have missed him. Somepony, somewhere must have mentioned him. Damn this fog, making it hard to think.
“Well? You have a job to do.” His voice cut through the fog and thickened it at the same time. I vaguely felt myself moving out of the office and toward the armory.
The next few minutes were a wonderful blur to me, talking to a security pony, getting issued a pistol and ammo. I don't even remember passing back through the slaughterhouse. I didn't know what kind it was, or really how to use it. The inventory spell on my Pipbuck helpfully labeled it a “10 mm Pistol.” I had three of what the guard called a 'magazine' and he showed me how to work the slide back to make it ready to fire, and then how to push the trigger button with my magic. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time or ammo for me to waste either precious resource practicing.
My Stable 20 jumpsuit, a handful of caps I pulled from the bar register, the pistol I didn't know how to use, and the pipbuck I never used except to listen to the Stable radio station were all I had, and as far as I was concerned, all I would need for my assigned task.
I didn't give the situation a second thought as I walked out into the wasteland, stepping over but not noticing the corpses of ponies I might have called friends once. I might never have left the Stable myself, but I knew ponies that had. Ratchel went into town every once in a while to barter for some spare parts, and liked to tell stories at the bar of what she did. This frequently involved obviously exaggerated tales of fighting off bloatsprites, radhogs, radigators, and all sorts of other dangerous creature. I felt like I knew exactly what I was doing. Now, looking back, it's obvious that I didn't. I had no clue what I was getting into.
I needed to get out of that Stable, and onto the trail of the raiders. That was really the only thing that mattered to me at that moment. I stepped into the entrance cave, ready to take on the world, and I wasn't about to let that trail get cold.
Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Thicker Than Water – You've seen enough blood that you never want to see it again, and will go to great lenghts to avoid seeing more. Your Medicine skill is increased by 10.
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Friendship is Power
Chapter Two: Live Wire
“What world do you live in? Out here in the real would, blood flows, man. Blood flows....”
I wished the trail had gone cold. At least then the Stable's entrance cave could have been cleaned up before I left. I did my best to get out of the immediate area before I lost it. Almost made it, too. At least I found a bush this time so I didn't have to look at what came out of my stomach.
Once I'd cleared cave, a breath of fresh air pierced the fog still lingering over my thoughts. Leaving aside my lingering nausea, I felt good. No, I felt better than good. I felt great. I was outside of the Stable. I was doing something productive. I was, for the first real time in my life, actually living.
There was a house a hundred yards away, and a trail leading from about where I was standing to the front door. No other structures were visible from where I was standing, and the trail I was on curled lazily toward the Stable cave before vanishing within. I didn't have any landmarks loaded in my Pipbuck, and I wasn't about to go charging aimlessly into the Wastes, so I started toward that lone house. My next move was laid clear before me. I loved it when things were simple.
The house was a two-level affair, surprisingly well cared for considering in was probably upwards of 200 years old. The paint wasn't even peeling, and the windows were all unbroken, which surprised me. In fact, the whole thing seemed a little too good. There was something off about the place, but I just couldn't afford to pass up any lead I could take. Just to be safe, I brought up the help file on my Pipbuck and turned on everything I thought would help. Eyes-Forward Sparkle? I didn't even know what that was, but on it went. Stable-Assisted-Targeting-System? That name was a bit more helpful, and it got turned on, too. Compass, at-a-glance health indicator, weapon status, it all got turned on now, before it came back to bite me in the flank for forgetting it later. I trotted up the front steps, pausing at the door. The map function somehow figured out it was called the “Tourist Trap.” Not sure how it knew that, wasn’t about to complain. Before I walked through I drew my beat up old pistol and made sure it was ready to use. Just in case.
I don't know how it knew, and I doubt I'll ever really figure out how it works, but somehow my E.F.S. lit up with a livid crimson bar as I knocked on the door. Everywhere else it's used, red is typically code for “bad,” and I wasn't about to second guess my gut out here. My horn flashed, pistol coming up, and I dove to the side, out of the door frame. Not a moment too soon, either, as the portal exploded into splinters as half a dozen bullets slammed into it. The crack of gunshots was deafening and terrifying, especially for somepony who's never heard them before. A bullet thudded into the small porch next to me, sending more splinters flying, cutting shallow gashes in my Stable jumpsuit. This thing obviously wasn't going to stop much more than a sharp stick as I was walking along, much less a bullet. My E.F.S. alerted me to another enemy, this one not inside the house, but instead at the top of a nearby hill. They evidently had a rifle of some kind. It flashed, another bullet shattered the window behind me, and the report echoed across the intervening distance.
This was definitely not good. I couldn't move into the building because of the pony in the house, and I couldn't stay here because of the pony with the rifle. I was pushing my luck just by staying here this long. Muttering fervent, panicked, and entirely too profane prayers to whichever of the Goddesses would listen, I rolled to my side and up onto my hooves, ducking frantically over the edge of the stairs and as far out of the way of the rifle as I could. Not quite good enough, and only luck saved me as the bullet deflected off of my still raised pistol. The jolt of the hit shocked me into pushing the trigger, and a much, much louder crack momentarily deafened me.
I dropped the pistol, it was probably useless now anyway, and reached out with my magic toward the door. I was never the best at levitation, and even worse at using my magic to manipulate objects I was already carrying, but I had to do something. The door swung open, twisted, and buckled at the hinges before finally tearing away entirely. I now had a shield, and my desperate prayers were answered as the rifle thudded into the solid wood but failed to penetrate. With cover, I could think out what I was going to do. First things first, make sure this wasn't just a horrible misunderstanding.
“Hey! Just wait a ****ing minute! I haven't done anything to you!”
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't the hysterical laughter that followed. Insane laughter. The pony in there was very clearly absolutely out of touch with reality in a big way.
Raiders. I froze in place. The damn butchers were right here! Why couldn't I move? I sat there, frozen, while bullets continued to slam into my makeshift shield. I was going to die here. I could feel it. I ducked as far into the corner as fast as I could, my magic wavering, shield dipping. A few more minutes, and they'd come out after me. It was all but over. There were more red dots now, at least three in the house now. Hysterical laughter echoed out of the house, now coming from not just one voice.
No no No NO NO! This was not happening! I was not going to let these ponies close in an butcher me. This strange, unfamiliar red-hot rage burned through the ice gripping my heart and evaporated my indecision. A guttural scream ripped itself from my throat and I vaulted back onto the porch and dove through the door hopefully fast enough that rifle-raider couldn't get a clear shot at me. I felt a strong tug at my hindquarters and I stumbled and fell, barreling headfirst into the first raider I saw. I couldn't feel anything wrong with me, but I was certain that I'd just been shot. No matter, it wouldn't stop me. These raiders would feel my rage whether they killed me or not.
We went down in a tangle of limbs. Apparently even raiders aren't in the habit of shooting at their own if there's a target on top of them. Good. The raider was wearing some grotesque collection of metal, bone, and what I was dreadfully certain was pony flesh half rotted away. I should have known they'd smell horrible. My gun was gone, my flimsy jumpsuit was full of holes just from falling on top of the collection of pointy bits the raider called armor. I was locked in hoof-to-hoof combat with one raider, there were two more staring at me with greedy, hungry eyes. I couldn't see what weapons they had, but it didn't matter. I had something they didn't.
I had an effective melee weapon.
My magic may not have been the strongest, but that doesn't seem to matter much when the object I was swinging was a solid wooden slab of a door. I rolled to the side and kicked the raider away from me a few inches. It was all I needed. The door, which I had somehow kept grip on during the incredibly brief struggle, hung in the air above the raider's neck.
I dropped it.
I've never broken a bone. I've never seen or heard a pony break a bone before. I watched the door crush the raider's neck under the impact. That hysterical laugh morphed into something grotesque, a wheezing, rasping cough as the utterer tried to draw breath through a shattered windpipe. Insane glee painted on his face morphed before my eyes to horrid realization. He was a dead pony.
Were it not for the other raiders around me, I would have just sat there to watch him die. I wanted to do nothing more in the world than watch this festering pox on the face of ponykind shudder and go still. But there were other raiders around me. I'd get to do it again. That thought kept me moving on to the next raider, moreso than any real sense of self-preservation.
The raider had been a unicorn, his weapon a gun that was bulkier than my pistol, with a magazine separate from the grip. I grasped it with my magic, my Pipbuck helpfully telling me it was a 10 mm Submachine Gun. A wicked grin spread across my face. This was even better than the pistol that was probably still smoking outside. I got to my feet, turning to look at my remaining two opponents in the house. One was an earth pony, the other a unicorn. Fortunately, only the unicorn had a gun, a pistol that looked worse than my old one, and the other raider only having a rusty knife that had definitely seen better days.
I liked my odds. Now I just had to pick which one of them to e--
Pain exploded in my chest, a red-hot spike that dimmed into a constant, heavy stream of the worst pain I had ever felt. An unpleasantly wet, warm feeling spread quickly from the center of the pain, dripping down my sleeves and onto the floor. Every throb of my heart intensified the feeling. I knew what it was, and instantly knew that what I had been so certain was a hit before had been nothing. But I wouldn't die, not yet. I grit my teeth against the pain, and before the smoking pistol could fire again, I depressed the trigger on the submachine gun. I wasn't expecting the stream of bullets to come out, and the muzzle drifted quickly upwards, tracking bullets across the gun-raider's torso and into the ceiling. Red mist blossomed out of the neat little holes that appeared in the raider's chest and neck, and then a bullet took the top of his head off.
Even in the middle of combat, I vomited again. Didn't matter if it was the middle of the fight of my life, didn't matter if I did it or somepony else did, watching cranial tissue decorate the other-wise decently clean walls put me over the edge again. Oh, Goddesses that hurt! The muscles in my chest spasmed, renewing the red-hot pain in my chest as it did so. I just wanted to curl up and die. Anything to make it stop.
NO! There was another one left! Whipping the submachine gun around with my magic, I depressed the trigger again. This burst stayed on target, but this raider had much better armor than the other, and they mostly skipped off barding or buried themselves in bits of leather and metal. The gun clicked empty.
****.
I really hate raiders. You know, in case you didn't pick that little bit up. But what I hate most about them isn't their dressing habits, it isn't their propensity for wholesale slaughter. It's their laugh. Their never-to-be-sufficiently-damned laugh. I got to hear it closer than I ever wanted to right then. Apparently my last raider was a mare. My knees buckled, and I found myself staring at the floor, the spasming in my chest not helping at all. The pain burned through my feeble fortitude, and the blood loss was really starting to get to me. I heard but couldn't see the raider approach. My vision was blurry, my hearing tinny and small. Thundering heartbeats threatened to drown out everything else.
Instinct took over. I lashed out with my magic, dropping the empty gun and instead grabbing for the knife in the she-raider's mouth. I got lucky. She was either so startled she dropped it, or I'm a lot stronger than I ever thought I was, or I wrenched it in just the right direction to free it. Whatever the reason, I now had a knife, and she-raider didn't have anything.
Laughing hurt too much, but swinging a knife with my magic didn't use my chest muscles at all. Thank the Goddesses for small favors.
There was no finesse in my technique. There was no grace in my swing. I just swung that knife and kept swinging, punching through armor and flesh and scoring bone. Kept swinging until I heard a thud and saw a pool of blood that wasn't mine spread across the floor. I barely kept from vomiting again. Only the knowledge that throwing up would wrack me with terrible pain kept the bile down.
Staying here would leave me dead in a pool of my own blood. I had to find medical supplies, and fast. The bathroom was the most likely place for that. My luck, such as it was, held out on me; the bathroom was right in front of me, the door not ten feet from my hooves.
Crawling to that door was the single most agonizing thing I had ever done. I wanted to stop. I wanted to die. I wanted to curl up in a ball and wait for that last raider outside to finish the job. Anything to make the pain stop.
Sometime later, I don't know how long, but it couldn't have been too long or I'd have bled out, I made it. There it was. A medicine box hung on the wall next to a mirror over the sink. Goddesses be praised!
Locked.
I wanted to cry. So close. I was going to die withing hoofsreach of the thing that could save me.
There was a bobby pin on the sink. Sometimes the register jammed, or I lost the key, or some other abject terror befell the bar in its worst moments, so I knew my way around a lock. Luck must have just been with me that day. The lock was simple, didn't even have to move the bobby pin from where I jammed it in. The lock clicking open was the most glorious sound I had ever heard.
Inside was a pair of empty bottles, a blood pack, and a healing potion. Luck was truly on my side. I downed it in seconds. Immediately I could feel the bleeding stop and the pain subside. Anatomy isn't my strong suit, and I'm fairly certain that the bullet missed most of my vital organs, but feeling the parts of my insides it did reach rearrange themselves, molding back together to not even leave a scar unsettled me in ways I can't really explain. It was unpleasant, but I wasn't about to complain about being alive. Well, not too loudly, at least.
I got back to my hooves slowly, not wanting to test the quality of my healing overmuch until I was sure I was safe.
The mirror saved my life. I got a glimpse of the last raider charging through the wrecked doorway with a rifle clenched in her jaw. I ducked and dove into the tub in the back as the mirror shattered under the raider’s fire. Fortunately, the tub was one of those metal dealies and could more than shrug off the rifle's bullets. I popped my head up so I could see what to do and almost lost an ear to a near-miss. Fortunately, the raider's gun was a piece of **** and her aim wasn't that great either.
It was just me and her, and I already knew how this would end. The rifle jammed, and a grin split my face from ear to ear. “Looks like luck isn't on your side, but it sure as hell is on mine.” She spat out the rifle and charged at me. I'd been out of the Stable for a grand total of ten minutes, green as green could be. She'd lived in the wastes her whole life, at least some of the time as a bloodthirsty, hardened raider. It shouldn't have been this easy. By all rights, she should have practically eaten me alive in hoof to hoof combat.
I brought the knife up, it flashed twice, hamstringing her hindlegs and sending her tumbling to the floor. It flashed again, cutting a gash down her flank, exposing a graphic representation of a pony being spit roasted over a bonfire.
It pissed me off. How ****ed up did a pony have to be to get a cutie mark that told the world their special talent was ****ing cannibalism? It sparked a deep, seething rage in me that wouldn't be satisfied by just killing this monster. She wasn't even a pony to me anymore.
The knife would be too quick. I tossed it aside and grasped for the door again. She was helpless, trying to crawl forward at me with just her front legs. There was still that murderous glint in her eyes, that hint of insanity. It was justification enough for me. The door blindsided her and sent her crashing into the wall. I don't know what broke and where, but it was evidently enough to make her stop trying to crawl toward me and instead just collapse in a heap. She was still alive, still breathing, but now pinned against the wall by the heavy door.
I grinned. It was a cruel, evil grin. “You and I are going to have a little talk. I want to know where my friends are. You are going to tell me. And then you're going to die. Any questions?” The knife, rusty as it was, glinted in the light of the sun shining at an angle through a window above the door.
She just spat in my face. That was okay by me. I could work with that.
“Alright, let's get down to business.”
I don't know how far into our little session she died, but I know it wasn't quick. It also wasn't at the end of it. I realized I didn't really care, either. I got what I wanted to know, and I got what I wanted to get, in the end. The sun had already halfway set behind the hills off to my left as I exited the house. The submachine gun and all the former-raider's ammunition found its way to my saddlebags, along with the knife and all of the medical supplies I didn't use while I was in the house, which amounted to one healing potion, a syringe of Med-X, the blood pack, and strangely a trio of bobby pins, which makes four. Still not a collection to write home about, especially since home was all of 200 feet from where I was walking. The rest of the house was barren and looked like it had been looted and left to rot years ago.
Thanks to my favorite raider, I now knew where the largest of the settlements in the area was. Unfortunately, she wasn't a part of the raider group that butchered half of my stable, so I didn't get that information, but now I had a definite starting place in the form of a mid-size town that the locals called Cantilly. At my current pace, I'd get there a few hours before dawn. My bloodthirst had been sated for now, but that still gave me more than a few hours for planning just what I'd do to all that scum when I finally got my hands on them.
Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Surgeon – Through careful experimentation, you've discovered a lot about how the pony body works. All strictly academic, of course. Your Medicine and Melee Weapons are both increased by 5.
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Friendship is Power
Chapter Three: Lessons Learned
“They can conquer who believe they can. He has not learned the first lesson in life who does not every day surmount a fear.”
Trekking across the Equestrian Wasteland very quickly taught me two important truths. One: traveling at night is a bad idea, especially if you're alone. Two: bullets are very, very, very finite. Perhaps more immediately relevant but less philosophically profound was the discovery that a submachine gun burns through bullets very quickly.
I found myself berating my lack of forethought for not realizing the first and panicking about the second while a steady stream of spines thudded into the hillock I was hiding behind. Dirt spewed into the air, showering me with clods of earth when a projectile grazed the top of the mound but went through instead of just burying itself harmlessly.
My jumpsuit was a filthy wreck. It was a mottled, dark burgundy color where blood had stained it, mostly from my gunshot wound earlier in the day. Rips and tears were everywhere, whether they were from splintering wood, the sharp edges of that one raider's armor, or the aforementioned gunshot. Some of the holes were big enough to let the chunks of dirt through to the interior, making the entire get up hugely uncomfortable. If I was going to survive out here, I was going to need something much better.
Ah. Right. Surviving. First I had to get away from these... whatever they hell they were. Roughly spherical bodies that floated on gossamer wings. At least, I assume they used to be spherical. Now they were grotesque and deformed, hideous flesh that looked like it was almost coming off as it flew, strange bumps and bulges belying a body that wasn't what it should be. Some of the bulges had spines protruding from them, and they could apparently fire them at whatever they wanted.
I lifted the SMG over the top of the hill, keeping my head way down to keep it from being taken off. Spines plinked off the gun, nicking the metal casing but otherwise doing no damage. Thank Celestia for small favors. I fired off a burst at the deformed insects, missing horribly. Of course. They weren't near as bad as I was. One spine went through my ear, and beneath the immediate prick of pain I felt a tingling. It spread very slowly from to the tip of my ear and then towards the rest of my skull. Uh oh. I had to finish this soon, and then hope that the poison or venom or whatever it was didn't kill me.
The SMG clicked empty and I swore. I was down to just one magazine and then a handful of bullets left over. Counting the red pips on my compass told me there were four of the things floating slowly toward me. I still didn't know how much it would take to kill one of them, and I wasn't about to sit here spraying until I finally hit one and pray that one bullet killed it. I had to find some way to event the odds.
They were close enough that I could hear their wings thrumming. Running out of time. Had to find something to help. Inventory? Everything was useless. They were closing in, and so was panic. I had nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
In my panic I must have pressed a button or something; I don't remember how it happened. I just know that my attention was brought to rest exactly on the lead creature. Time slowed, and I the thing's wings stopped in mid-flight, but it didn't fall. I marvelled at the sensation of not being able to move but still being able to think, and used that peculiar property of whatever was happening to think about how to kill the blasted thing. Time abruptly sped back up, and my SMG fired a burst of shells that ripped into what I now somehow knew was a “bloatsprite.” It popped like a balloon. A water balloon filled with a twisted, tainted sludge. Strangely, I didn't feel the urge to void my guts. Maybe that only happened when I saw pony blood and guts? No matter. I now knew I possessed something to help me kill these abominations. I just had to figure out how to use it again.
It's strange how quickly panic can morph into pleased excitement.
My pipbuck flashed a warning at me, telling me that “S.A.T.S.” was depleted. I recognized the name from the list of features I had enabled before I entered the door, but hadn't used. Didn't know how to use. Apparently that was what I had killed the bloatsprite with. Hell, that was probably how I found out it was a bloatsprite in the first place! Half of the things in my pipbuck I would never know how it worked or how it knew what it knew. Probably didn't want to know anyway.
I had to find that button again. My life probably quite literally depended on it.
Found it! I pressed it, relieved that I could end this objectively pretty pathetic fight (a bunch of mid-sized insects pinned me down and sent me into a panic) and be on my way.
Nothing happened. ****. My pipbuck flashed me the message “S.A.T.S. Recharging” and showed a me a bar that was slowly filling back up to what I assumed was full. Fine. I could be patient if I needed to.
Okay, I thought I could be patient. I found myself constantly pressing the button, ignoring the flashing message until it finally let me re-enter the spell. I blew away another of the sprites with another burst. I felt like I was getting good at this. Duck into S.A.T.S., kill a sprite, duck back into cover, repeat. I couldn't seem to fire much less than half a dozen shots even if I wanted to though, which made ammo a concern again. I was down to less than a full magazine for my SMG.
Two left. A burst from my submachine gun. One left. Ducked behind cover, waited to recharge, popped back up, fired... and missed.
A small voice in the back of my head *****ed at me for thinking that this nifty new spell would make me immune to missing. Of course I could still miss.
So I did. Twice more. Frustration boiled up in me, and it took almost all the self-control I was able to muster to not just charge the last annoying sprite and stab it to death. My ear still burned, and the burning was spreading across the top of my head and down the side of my face. A light cloud was drifting over my thoughts, making it more difficult to think. More difficult, but not impossible. Just enough to know that there was something wrong.
I heard a buzzing, much closer than it should be and looked straight up in time to see the last sprite crest my little mound of dirt, spines already firing. I felt a few of them embed in my all-but-completely-exposed flesh through my coat. A few more missed, and the last were inexplicably halted by my ruined jumpsuit. I cried out in shock and pain, feeling the poison/venom already burning beneath my skin. The sprite was close enough to kill without S.A.T.S. at least. I did so, with a sense of great satisfaction. Nevermind the bloatsprite guts now seeping into my suit, as unpleasant as that was, I had just survived another encounter in the wastes, against something I had never seen before, outnumbered, in the middle of the night. Take that, Wasteland.
Then I felt it. The tingling. It was a burning sensation, no, it was worse. It made my mane itch and my skin crawl. Any exposed part of my body that the sprite's guts had covered was shuddering in revulsion. This stuff was evil. I had to get it off. Right now.
I tried scraping it off with my hooves, but that just made them tingle and crawl too, and the parts of me that I “cleaned” still practically screamed that something was wrong, even if less so than before. In the midst of all of this, my pipbuck was clicking at an alarming rate; I was picking up rads like I never had before. It scared me.
I shed my shredded jumpsuit as fast as I could, wiping away as much of the tainted material as I could. I was naked now, yes, but I felt much safer, all things considered. Most of the guts were gone, and the parts that I couldn't clean entirely didn't feel like my skin would crawl off and leave at any second anymore. The only parts of my clothing that I kept were my saddlebags. I had the feeling I was going to need those.
I took stock of my situation. I still had my submachine gun, now looking much the worse for wear, and ten bullets left for it. My knife, healing potion, and four bobby pins, with 40 caps stuffed into a pocket. Pipbuck working better than ever, now that I actually knew how to use it.
A quick look at my map was a welcome surprise. Those horrid creatures had ambushed me just over a mile from Chantilly. If not for these hills, I probably could have seen a few of the lights from here.
I took a step forward, toward the town, and almost ate the dirt right then and there. The Goddesses-damned bloatsprite spines were making me dizzy. Most of my body felt like it was on fire. I had to get to the city, and fast. I doubted a healing potion would do much to stop the poison (funny how imminent bodily danger makes up one's mind rather quickly) for very long, but I kept it ready, just in case.
The poison was making walking hard, and thinking harder. I was basically on autopilot at this point. I had to get to the town, so I followed the blinking arrow on my compass. I'd get there eventually. I had to. This fog. Hate it. Poison. Not good. Had to... town.
* * * * * *
The next thing I knew, I was waking up on a bed that wasn't mine, staring at a ceiling that wasn't mine, naked. What the ****? Where was my bar? Where were my clothes? Where the **** was I?
Wait. I remembered. I was in the wastes, looking for the raider camp. The camp that butchered half of my Stable. I had to get back out there! I had to--
Head met ground as I flopped off the bed. Stars blossomed in my vision.
“Whoa there! Take it easy there. You were pretty ****ed up from those bloatsprites.”
The voice was entirely unfamiliar to me and had the exact opposite effect of calming me down. Panic flaired, and I flailed my limbs, trying to right myself and stand up. They weren't quite working how I wanted to them, responding half a second too late to everything I wanted to do. It was like being drunk except my mental processes weren't nearly as impeded.
“I said, take it easy!” I felt myself enveloped in a field of magic. Apparently whoever this pony was, he was a unicorn. He rotated me to face him and spoke veeeery slooooowly, as if I were too stupid to understand him. To be fair, I hadn't really given him any indication otherwise, but it was still insulting. “Caaaalm dowwwn.”
“Fine, just put me down. This is humiliating.” I had the feeling this buck could wipe the floor with me again, so arguing didn't seem like the most constructive thing at the moment. Still, a bit of dignity would go a long way in my mind. Fortunately, he relaxed and complied. “Thanks. Now I've got a few questions.” Okay, kind of blunt, probably not the best way to open the next part of the conversation.
“Hold it, missy. Mine first.” I hmph'd but didn't say anything else, and he kept going. “Who are you? You shouldered your way into my shop and passed out on my floor first thing in the morning. I don't think I've ever pulled as many spikes from a living pony before. And you apparently rolled around in the thing's guts after you killed it.”
I perked up at his question. I was in Chantilly? The last thing I remember was walking along the straight line path I'd picked to get to the town, eyes glued to my E.F.S. for red dots, making decent time. And then... Damn bloatsprites. I must have muttered it out loud, because he gave a little chuckle. “Ayup, you were just studded with their spines. I'm don't know how far you came, but if it was any sort of real distance I'm very impressed.”
My expression must have been one of horror, or something, because he quickly continued. “Now now, don't you fret any, I patched you up, removed the spikes, even cleared the taint you managed to pick up. My treat.” His face turned more serious. “But the next time it happens, I'll have to charge you my going rate. Sixty caps for a basic patch up. Another forty for a taint cleansing. Get both at the same time and you get a free rad-cleansing. Your little treatment is a hundred caps of my goodwill. I won't collect on it now, but I might ask for a favor done later, m'kay?”
Huh. Well, that wasn't as bad as it could have been. This doctor seemed like a good pony. “I'm still waiting for an answer,” he probed. Oh, right.
“Oh, right. I'm Mint Julep, from Stable 20 across the hills a few miles. I'm looking for some raiders. They attacked our Stable, and took enough to seriously threaten its survival.” That seemed to surprise him.
“Raiders? Attacked the Stable? Damn, they're getting bold. That's bad.” He paused lost in thought.
“Um, excuse me? I do need to find them.” Figured I'd just throw that out there.
That seemed to startle him out of his thoughts. “Oh, yeah. Tell you what, I'll call in that favor now, actually. You're looking for that raider camp? I know the general direction.” He paused, as if conflicted. “I want you to scout it out. Figure out how many raiders there are. How well they're armed. What their leader looks like. Take that information to the local sheriff, goes by the name Splinter. You'll know him when you see him.”
He paused again, as if waiting for me to weigh in. When I didn't, he kept going. “You do that for me, and I'll call us even. Hell, I'd even give you a discount for services provided in the future, if'n you ever need them.”
Well then. I'd been awake in this town for a grand total of ten minutes, and I already had another job to do. Fortunately, coincided with what I was already doing, but still. I didn't need anything getting in my way. On the other hand, he was offering a discount, and I didn't have many caps to my name. A discount might go a long way.
I thought it over for a few more seconds. “Alright, but I could use some supplies too. And I still don't even know your name, mister...?”
“Bonesaw. I know, it sounds gruesome, but don't get caught up on it.” He trotted over to a cabinet in the corner of the room, a room with only one door and no windows, I noted for some strange reason, and pulled out an object before handing it to me. It was some kind of armored barding. Not very heavy or the best protection you'd ever find, but a hell of a lot better than anything I had with me or ever used. “Years back I used to run with one of the smaller gangs around Fillydelphia, before Red Eye really moved in and cleaned up the place. Called ourselves the 'Delphia Delvers. Made our living and got our kicks exploring the ruins of the inner city. The gang is gone, scattered across the wastes, but this was our uniform. It's better than it looks, trust me on that.”
It certainly didn't look like much; it'd take a lot to disappoint. The old uniform fit me better than I thought it would, especially considering how much bigger Bonesaw was than me. What I assumed to be the gang symbol, an old spelunking helmet, was emblazoned on each flank where it covered my cutie mark. It wasn't much, and wouldn't stop the kind of rifle the raider I encountered yesterday had, but it might have stopped the smaller pistol bullet that gave me a lot of grief. Much better. My only gripe was that it was heavier than I was used to.
“You're gonna have to find your own ammo for that peashooter though. I don't bring guns in here, and even if you'd have been conscious I'd have taken yours and left it in the waiting room before letting you back here. It's on the end table as you're leaving.”
I graciously thanked him for the help he'd given me already. Just as easily, he could have either let me die, or taken everything I had and I would have been powerless to stop him. Instead, I was fully healed, and now I had something that might actually stop more than a particularly persistent tree branch from poking a hole in me.
Before I left, he marked on my map the general direction of the raider camp. It was a fair distance away, further than Stable 20 was, but in a different direction. “Anything else I should watch out for on my way there?” It didn't hurt to double check.
Bonesaw shook his head, “not that I know of. Don't mean there's nothing, though. You be careful.”
That was all I really needed from this place. I bid him farewell, picked up my SMG and the less than a dozen bullets I had left for it and headed out into the street. Walking out into the open air made me flinch a little bit, but I'd already spent the better part of a day on the surface; I would be fine. I exited the building into what had to be the brightest part of the day. Apparently the much better part of the day, it must be nearly noon already, maybe even past that. That told me roughly how long I'd been out, at least.
The town I was in spectacularly failed to impress me. There must only have been a couple score ponies living here, spread over enough distance that no two houses stood together and most were separated by a hundred feet or so in most directions. A general store, complete with fluorescent sign and “OPEN” sign greeted me just across the street, and a rudimentary inn stood down the street, proudly proclaiming itself to the the “Sandpony Inn.” Really, not impressed, especially coming out of the Stable.
Unfortunately, beggars can't be choosers, and I trotted over to the general store. I did need ammo rather badly, after all. The door was open, if you considered “hanging off its hinges” to mean “open.” Walking in, I was greeted by a very stern looking mare who was very quick to tell me that troublemakers were not welcome and would be dealt with immediately. I'm not going to lie, she was pretty intimidating. Any non-existent thoughts I had of making trouble swiftly became even moreso.
The counter was right in front of me as I walked into the shop, with a jovial and rather large (and definitely less muscular than not) stallion manning the helm. I really took the gruff mare's words to heart as I approached. “I need some ammo.” There. Quick, precise, and to the point.
The stallion just chuckled and said “like hell you do! What you need is a proper piece of weaponry! What the hell kind of a gun is that? How hard did you have to look to find a knife with more rust than steel? No, that just won't do.”
I fancied myself a decent barterer and a fair-to-middling salespony, but this buck blew me out of the water at the ease at which he relaxed me, lowered my guard, and opened me to the concept of spending all of my money right then and there. Fortunately I wasn't entirely wrong, and managed to get a few good points of my own into the haggle that I never expected to get into. I sold my SMG and the ammo I had for it (it really was junk, and I couldn't afford to support it) for a few quick caps, and then turned around and spent them all, and all of the 40 caps I started with on a decent quality shotgun and three dozen shells for it, about eight of which were slugs instead of normal buckshot. I kept the knife. There was something special about it, in my eyes.
“You come back now, ya hear? Customers from out of town that come back more than twice get a one-time bit of store credit.” Damn he was good, somehow just him mentioning store credit made me want to come back. I was really starting to like this town. Might even come back here in a few years, after all this business was done, the Stable was back to normal, and I was able to con some poor pony into running the bar for me. Some day.
The whole town was circled by a picket fence. It was more of a “watch out, town here” sign than any serious kind of deterrent to anything that wanted to get in. On my way to the gate, I realized why the houses were so spread apart: nearly all of them had little farms around them. About a dozen ponies were actively out in the fields, weeding rows of crop, repairing small barbed wire fences that cordoned off the individual plots, or doing laundry, or any number of chores. It felt just laid back enough to be comfortable, and just hard working enough to feel something close to safe. I almost didn't want to leave and finish my mission at all.
Almost.
I almost at the gate when one of the townsponies, a mare, caught up with me. “Hey, you, newcomer. You're not headed for that raider camp, are you?”
Goddesses, how did word travel that fast? I tried to downplay the matter, and probably failed. “I might be. Why?”
Yep, definitely failed. Her eyes lit up and it looked like at least a little weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “My name is Dacquoise. The raiders... two months ago, they took my son when he was scavenging for equipment along the road south of here.” South? The raider camp, according to my map, was a decent distance north-east of the town. Wariness crept into my mind. “I hold no illusions that he's still alive, they are raiders after all, but he had a precious family heirloom with him when he went missing. I need it back.”
Two months. I guess that made more sense than the few days or hours that I had been thinking. You know what, why the hell not? I was already heading that way, I might as well look for this heirloom she was talking about. “I look out for it, but I can't make any promises.”
That seemed to satisfy her. “That's all I'm asking. Trust me, you can't miss it. It's a small statuette of
one of the old Ministry Mares, Pinkie Pie. It was given to my family as a gift before the war ended, and we've kept it in the family ever since. It means so much to me. Those raiders may have taken my son, but I'll die before I let them keep that, too.” I admired her dedication to the ideal of causing raiders pain. I know I just said I wouldn't make any promises, but this had just jumped to near the top of my priorities list.
“I'll do my best.” We parted ways, her spirits considerably raised, my motivation considerably boosted now that I had another way to hurt raiders.
I actually got out the gate this time before I got stopped again. “Hey, are you headed to the raider camp?”
My patience was wearing more than a little thin. Was I really that easy to read? How could walking in this general direction unequivocally mean 'going to raider camp'? “What is it this time?” I snapped at the newcomer.
He was a light gray earth pony stallion with a darker, charcoal mane that drifted into his eyes and around his nose. Probably around my age or maybe a little younger and most definitely easy on the eyes. Well, at least I thought so, which probably wasn't saying much considering I spent most of my time up to this point staring at walls all day. Not the point. The point was that he was a very handsome piece of work.
“Oh! Uhm, sorry about that,” I said sheepishly. Why was I so flustered all of a sudden? “I'm just trying to get out of town and do my job, and ponies keep stopping me.”
Wait a second, did he just blush? I couldn't be sure, what with the dark(ish) coat and the mane partly covering his face, but it sure looked like it. “I, ah, well... I saw you walking this way and, uhm, I, well, thought you could use some h-help? Maybe?”
Oh, well if that wasn't just adorable. Definitely younger, or maybe didn't get out much. I thought over his offer. It was true I could use the help. If there was anything my two encounters with the things the Wasteland could throw at me was any indication, I would be hard pressed to deal with an entire camp of raiders without leaving my body decorating the ground in the middle of nowhere. Or some raider-pony's armor. Okay, moving on from that pleasant thought.
I probably – well, okay, definitely put more show into mulling it over than I actually did, just to see his reaction. He looked so nervous! It was definitely cute, and that quality about him was honestly not a non-factor in my decision.
“I don't know, can you handle yourself in a fight?” Simple question, important question, and, I thought, fairly warranted. It had the unintentional effect of blasting all that cute nervousness away like fog on a hot day.
“Probably a lot better than you can, from the looks of you when you stumbled in earlier,” he said with a fierce but not unfriendly glare. Ooh, ouch. Well, that was certainly true. It was about then that I noticed what he was wearing. It was some kind of armored gear that I had never seen before. It had what looked like a pair of rifles mounted on it with imposingly large barrels, and the way he carried himself told me he knew how to use them. Well, he was certainly more intimidating than I was.
I winced. “Point taken. You can come along if you want, just know that I'm not headed there to slaughter the camp. I'm just looking around.”
My response didn't bother him in the slightest, if looks were any indication. “I know, Bonesaw briefed me before I set off after you.” Hmm, looked like I owed Bonesaw twice now. Maybe even three times, depending on how this little jaunt went.
“Did he know? I'll have to have a word with him when we get back.” I started off in the direction of the camp. These delays were getting tiresome; I didn't want to have to travel by night again, especially since it looked to be cross-country again. I looked back. He wasn't following. “Hey, are you coming or not?”
He kind of stared at me for a few seconds, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. “You're not from around here, are you? It's faster to take the roads around here, and you're much less likely to run into something nasty than if you're just walking across the hills.”
Well didn't I feel stupid now. With quiet indignation I trotted back to the road and turned the direction that looked like it would take us closest to the camp, according to my map. Ignoring that little mishap, I tried to strike up a conversation. “So, Bonesaw sent you did he....”
“Uh, yeah. I mean, yes, yes he did. I was worr- I mean he was worried about you getting there and back in one piece. Uhm, no offense.” Now that I apparently wasn't challenging his stallionhood or doing something stupid, it looked like he was getting nervous again. Oh, this was going to be fun!
Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Hard Bargain -- Your bartering expertise can save you a lot of caps. You now receive an automatic 5% better prices during any transaction.
-
Friendship is Power
Chapter Four: Foundation
“The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.”
Traveling with a companion was wonderful! Even though I may have been pretty observant under ideal conditions, I just didn't know enough about the great outdoors of the Wasteland to recognize and avoid the dangers hiding under every rock and bush. Jasper sure did. He even took the time to point out the signs to avoid for some of the more common creatures. Thanks to him, I now knew exactly what a bloatsprite nest looked like, and how to avoid the things if they were out and about. I would never have guessed that what I had previously thought were beehives (at least, that was what the picture books from when I was a filly told me) were actually bloatsprite dens. Learn something new every day.
In between my lessons, we talked about where we were from, how we'd grown up. You know, the kind of things people talk about when they're bored, traveling with each other, and met for the first time only recently. At first, it was hard (although decidedly not frustrating) trying to get him to open up a bit. For the entire first hour of the trip, I swear he didn't stop stuttering and blushing for more than ten minutes, unless he was talking about the wastes or I challenged one of his skills or the other. I think sometime around the end of the second hour something clicked and he realized we'd be in close proximity for at least the next couple days, and maybe beyond that. He was still adorably nervous, but had a tighter rein on it. Even then, despite my best efforts, he neatly sidestepped or redirected every question I threw at him, and none of my best charm and persuasion got him to give up anything.
Jasper and I were about five hours travel from Cantilly, as near as my pipbuck clock and map could tell me. We weren't hurrying, and good thing, too. Hurrying would have gotten us there sometime around sunset, and fighting raiders in the dark did not appeal to me at all. No, instead we took a leisurely walk down the road, and were about two hours of decent walking from the general area of the raider encampment according to Bonesaw's directions when Jasper told me now would be a good time to make camp.
His reasoning was simple enough. In the middle of the overcast night it was magnitudes harder to scan for all the little signs and give aways that kept our trip here trouble-free for as long as it had been. Plus, fighting in the middle of the night is a lot more hazardous and difficult than a broad daylight gunfight, assuming we weren't the ones doing the ambushing.
I wasn't personally one for camping, much preferring a nice warm bed and roof than wide open sky and whatever bedroll you brought with you, of which I did not have one. Fortunately, Jasper had two, which I found out after an absolutely hilarious little exchange where he tried to make a joke about sharing a bedroll but only got halfway through the delivery before stuttering to an embarrassed halt, blushing so much that I thought his face would catch on fire or something. When asked why he carried around two bedrolls in his saddlebags, he declined to comment.
Before tonight, I had never actually spent a night outside that didn't consist of me fighting for my life against mutated insects. With a nicely burning campfire, a comfortable bedroll (I was certain he gave me the better one), and a companion who knew exactly what he was doing, it was quite the experience. Even under the oppressive cloud cover intrinsic to the wastes, the night was wonderful. Not too hot, not too cold, not rainy, not too dry.
It felt like a set-up. I don't know how or why I thought that, but I did.
Then I realized: I couldn't hear anything besides the crackling fire and Jasper finishing up his latest story.
“...And by the time we got the bucket off, the whole place was on fire!” Despite my sudden unease, it was a legitimately funny story, and I laughed along with him. It didn't look like he noticed. Time to fix that.
As he started in on the next part, I cut him off, “Jasper, wait. Listen,” I stopped to give him a few seconds to listen and come to the same conclusion I did. Complete silence came over the little camp as he did so. “I don't hear anything.” I was on full alert, looking at every shadow like it was some horrid monstrosity waiting to jump into the light. “What does that mean out here in the wastes?”
His smile was gone, replaced by a grim expression that didn't leave me any better at ease. “Well, it can mean one of two things,” he started, “either we just got really lucky and everything in the area is away from home hunting or foraging or whatever and isn't around to bother something, or...” he trailed off.
Seriously, not helping. “...Or what?” I pressed, not really looking forward to the answer.
“Or there's something around here that's big, nasty, and mean enough to scare them all quiet.” Yeah, definitely had not been looking forward to that. If there was something nasty enough to do that to the kind of monsters living in the wastes, what chance did we have against it?
“And can you think of any creature that fits the bill, off the top of your head?”
Jasper just shook his head. “A manticore might, but there hasn't been a manticore within ten miles of Cantilly for as long as I can remember.”
A chill made its way down my spine. A manticore? No, wait, he said no manticore. “Anything else?” I inquired, still intensely ill at ease. My eyes darted around our surroundings, desperate to pick out what could be wrong with the scene. As quietly and unobtrusively as I could, I slipped my combat shotgun out of my bags and loaded it. Two buckshot, one slug, two buckshot, one slug. Hopefully whatever it was wasn't looking for a fight, and the buckshot would get it to go away without seriously pissing it off.
Jasper was just as quietly readying his battlesaddle, or so he called it. Considerably quieter than I was being, actually. I figured just with how heavy it was that it would make noise, but he seemed to know exactly how to stop that from happening.
He stood up, motioned me to stay here and be quiet with a few hoof gestures, and then melted into the night. I wouldn't have a made a sound even if he hadn't bidden me to, seeing him there one minute and gone the next rendered me speechless. I couldn't hear or see him at all. The ease at which he disappeared what simply unbelievable. He didn't even show up on my E.F.S. as the tell-tale blue pip of 'friendly.' Unreal.
Time passed agonizingly slowly. I couldn't tell if it had been minutes or hours since he vanished. Every passing moment had me looking more fervently into the darkness, paranoia fuelling my still slowly rising apprehension.
Jasper appeared next to me so suddenly that it was a monumental exercise in self-control not to scream like a little filly. I managed, barely.
“We have to leave. Quietly, and right now.” I opened my mouth to protest and immediately reconsidered. Yes, argue with the experienced wasteland survival expert in the middle of the night with something presumably large and dangerous lurking around the corner and you've been out of the Stable for a grand total of a day and a half. Brilliant plan.
Instead, I did the smart thing and packed up as quickly and quietly as I could. My pipbuck light stayed in the securely 'off' position as we made the best time we could through the darkness, going only as fast as we could without raising too much of a commotion. In other words, not as fast as I would have liked. We even left the campfire burning instead of extinguishing it in our haste.
Nearly a full mile and the tensest hour I could ever remember experiencing later, we slowed to a stop. We were situated in the depression between a pair of decently large hills. He was scanning for something, checking the horizon as well as he could in the dark as if there should be something silhouetted against the clouds. After a few minutes of careful observation, he let out a relieved sigh, and I realized that I could hear the local wildlife again.
“What the hell were we just running from?” I was still greatly confused. Terrified, of course, but confused. “I never saw or heard anything.”
“Nor would you have. What we just avoided was an Ursa.” His voice was deadly serious. “Near total invisibility, the size of a large house back in Cantilly. Very quiet unless it's in the middle of a fight. It's probably the most dangerous thing you will ever encounter in the wastes, bar none.”
Well, that was comforting. “We have to tell Cantilly. There's no way anyone there knows about it yet, or Bonesaw would have warned me before we set off. At the very least, would have warned you.”
“That's for sure. Unfortunately, we're too far from the town to get back anytime soon. It didn't look like it was headed for Cantilly, but honestly I could barely tell where it was, much less where it was going. Travelling at night around here is a Bad Idea unless you want to end up on the wrong side of an ambush, and it'd take half a day to get there.” He shook his head, and then continued, “no, we've got to keep going.”
I didn't like it, and I told him as much. It didn't shake him.
“Trust me, that town can take care of itself. These raiders are honestly a bigger threat just because they have a reason to stop at the town if they wander by, the Ursa doesn't.” I'm glad he was so calm about it, that put me at ease more surely than him just saying it. He knew what he was talking about.
We set up camp quickly, getting ready to make the most out of what time we had before dawn. I checked the clock on my pipbuck. Near midnight. Dawn would be in about six, maybe seven hours and I wanted to be well rested before sneaking around a raider camp, but not so much that I'd neglect to keep watch. “You get some rest first. I'll wake you in a few hours to change shift.” He seemed surprised that I came up with that myself. I was slightly offended. I may be new to the wastes, but I wasn't stupid, and I was a quick learner. I gave him my best glare, and he shut his mouth without arguing and curled up on the bedroll. A few minutes later, I could hear his light snoring.
One thing I hadn't remembered was how paranoid I was. Every shadow became a monster waiting for me to nod off. Every shaking brush was an Ursa, come to finish the job it missed the first time.
Three very nerve-wracking hours later, I nudged Jasper awake for him to take his shift. He gave me a nasty look, but got up all the same. Being on a bedroll instead of awake and staring at shadows didn't make it any easier to go to sleep. I kept imagining the worst possible outcome, and how if I were to fall asleep, it would undoubtedly happen.
The next thing I knew, Jasper was shaking me awake, telling me it was time to move. It was still dark, yes, but a subtle lightening tint lifted the intense feeling of gloom that had plagued me all night. The fire was already extinguished, and he was already all packed up, battlesaddle loaded and ready for any unwanted surprises. I made sure my shotgun was loaded (still) and shoved it in my saddlebags such that it would be easy to whip it out at a moment's notice.
I nodded my readiness, and we were off. Being so close to the raider camp, only a couple of miles at most, meant we were trying not to be too loud on our approach. We had a few simple objectives. One, get in without getting caught. Two, find the supplies from the Stable. Three, identify the raiders' strength, equipment, and leadership. Four, find the statuette. I'd filled Jasper in on the first three, but the fourth felt more like a personal obligation. Should all be easy enough. The trick was getting in and out without being caught and killed. Yeah. Easy.
It was a larger camp than I expected. It was also situated adjacent to an abandoned town that looked like it had been abandoned at least since the balefire bombs dropped that my pipbuck helpful and inexplicably labeled “Everfree Mills”. I was quick to note that the raiders seemed to have erected barricades between all of the buildings closest to the camp that they could. That made me immediately nervous. If the raiders were trying to defend themselves from that direction, there must be something nasty in there, even if I couldn't see it from here.
The camp itself was a haphazard collection of a half dozen ancient buildings and about a dozen tents. The tents combined with the buildings to fill out a roughly rectangular area only a little removed from the closest town buildings. It looked like a couple of the camp buildings weren't even being used. We were currently situated near the top of a nearby hill (not the very top, silhouetting yourself is bad), which gave us an excellent vantage point on the raiders walking around below.
In a few ways, it was too good. They were raiders, with everything that entails. I might not be able to smell everything as well as up close, but I could see the 'decorations.' In turn, I decorated the side of the hill a little bit. Repeatedly. That was going to be a problem. If I was voiding my guts just by being within sight of the damn place, it was going to be an exercise in futility to sneak around down there.
“Jasper?” I asked tentatively.
“Yeah?”
“I need a distraction.” There. Might as well be blunt about it.
He just blinked. “Uhm, are you crazy? There has to be two dozen raiders down there! Being a distraction would be suicide!”
Okay, looks like being blunt didn't work, now to try for smooth. “You're a big, strong buck, aren't you? I'm sure it'd be a piece of cake.” I gave him my best flattering grin and suggestive wiggle. “I'd be ever so grateful if you did it.”
He stiffened up so much I thought he was going to fall over. Wasn't that just adorable? “I'll take that as a 'yes'.”
We took the time to formulate a plan. Wouldn't do to get killed because we didn't know what the other was doing. It was pretty simple, not too difficult (relatively) for either party, and, most importantly, it existed, as opposed to a half though-up scheme that we would just wing though anyway.
Jasper would 'entice' the raiders patrolling the immediate area with a few well placed rifle rounds, hopefully thinning the ranks by a few before he had to move. When he did, he would head straight for the abandoned town. He knew all the signs and what to avoid for the most part, so I wasn't worried about him. He would lead the raiders that went after him on a merry chase through the abandoned buildings until they got bored, all died, or I finished my job. While doing this, he'd take mental notes on what the raiders were carrying, and hopefully who was leading them.
While he was doing that, my 'job' was to scour the raider camp for the stolen supplies, look for any survivors in the cages and tents down there (assuming I didn't vomit myself into unconsciousness before I got to them), and look for the statuette. I didn't tell him that last part. Didn't seem particularly important. When my job was done, I was to send up the signal, in this case a simple, harmless bolt of light from my horn like a flare.
Jasper readied his weapons again, little more than a calming exercise before he set up in a decent vantage point where they would be able to see him when he opened fire, but wouldn't be able to close very rapidly. The whole point of the distraction was to buy time, after all.
I crept as close as I thought I would be able to without being seen to by the patrolling raiders and waited for the first shots.
They were louder than I expected, twin thunderclaps that almost hurt my ears even from two hundred yards away. The raider closest to my position blinked off of my E.F.S.'s display. The twin hammers cracked twice more in quick succession, dropping another red bar from the display but only wounding another. His very loud curse was pain-laced and slurred, but he was still alive.
Jasper fired one more time, finishing off the wounded raider before sprinting for the town. A mass of red pips lit up my E.F.S. Before most of them started moving in his direction. Five, ten, fifteen dots trailed after the lone blue dot on my scope. Several stayed. Well ****. I kicked myself for not expecting the raiders to leave guards.
No matter, I'd just have to deal with them. I crept around the outside tent and got a good look at the 'courtyard' between the buildings.
I threw up.
I kept going.
I had to find the supplies, any captives, and the statuette. Supplies, captives, statuette. I repeated them in my head like a mantra to keep me from losing my breakfast again and again. The raiders had apparently left six on-duty (or off-duty, I wasn't sure) guards in the camp when they headed out. The one closest to me was walking around the ring of tents slowly. Maybe he was doing laps around the camp, maybe he was on a patrol, maybe he was just so bat**** crazy that he though he was walking in a straight line. I didn't particularly care. I found an alcove that was hidden from view of the rest of the guards that I could see (four in all) between a pair of tents on the lone patrolling guard's path. I readied my knife; the shotgun would bring them running, and then I'd be ****ed.
He passed in front of me, and I threw the knife as hard as I could with my magic. It was a beautiful throw. The knife stuck in the back of his head and he went down like a sack of bricks. I didn't think any of the other guards saw, mostly because there were no shouts, no gunshots, no raiders-come-running. Excellent.
The handiest thing about telekinesis, I think, is that you don't have to be right next to the thing you want to move. I grasped the knife stuck in his skull from my hiding place and tugged until it came back out. The blood on the blade made still made me heave, but at least I hadn't had to shoot him.
By some miracle of circumstance, the tents nearest me all had flaps facing out of the circle, meaning I could get in and out without stepping into the wide-open middle of the camp. Oh yeah, and the mutilated corpses all around it. That was a nice bonus, too.
I could check four tents without wandering in front of a guard, from the looks of it. I idly wondered if they had a schedule to keep, but dismissed the thought. They were raiders, how organized could they be?
The first tent had nothing of note, not even a sleeping mat. Just a dirt floor and four tent walls.
The second tent had a footlocker with a 10 mm pistol almost identical to the one I'd left the vault with, a dozen 10 mm rounds, and three shotgun shells. Now this, I could use. The 10 mm rounds were the same kind as the ones I'd put through my SMG against the bloatsprites and raiders, but the shotgun shells threw me off a bit. They weren't the same as the buckshot and slugs that I already had with me. These ones were marked ‘4/0 buck’. I had no idea what it meant by that, but I kept them anyway. More ammo was always useful.
I was in the middle of looking through the third tent in the row (this one actually had a legitimate bed in it. I was impressed) when a raider walked in on me. Surprise widened her eyes, her horn flashed, and up came a pistol that I'd never seen before. That wasn't really saying much, obviously, but it was significantly different from my 10 mm. It was a revolver, for one, but the biggest difference was the scope, of all things, mounted on top. My shotgun left its rudimentary holster as she fired her first shot.
Sweet Celestia! That was almost as loud as Jasper's rifles! It's a very good thing she missed, even if that huge crack was the only meter to judge its potential lethality. My shotgun didn't. I have to admit, shotguns cover that base pretty well. Pellets found chinks in armor, and perhaps more importantly exposed flesh in the form of her head and neck. Unfortunately for me, that shot didn't kill her.
If the shots we'd just exchanged weren’t going to bring the whole camp running, the wounded howl she gave next sure would. Strips of flesh hung from her ruined face and blood trickled out from the dozens of small perforations in her exposed neck and where the pellets had gone through armor. My bile rose, and I had to push it down hard.
I must have blinded her or something, because she started firing as fast as she could in my general direction. I dove out of the way behind the bed, hoping that the flimsy covers and mattress would at least slow the bullet enough that I'd survive a hit. A couple of them even hit my general side of the tent. The gun clicked empty after only five more shots (very useful to know) and she tried to get out of the tent before I returned fire. She half made it, and then got very lucky when my next shot missed. At the very least she was out of the fight for now, and I would welcome any favors I could get, seeing as I now had a half dozen angry raiders descending on my position. They'd be here any second.
I had two choices. I could hunker down in this tent, try to find some cover, set up an ambush, something like that. That felt like a bad idea, considering there was no cover in the tent, and it was a tent, with the canvas-thin walls that implies. So I ran for it. As quietly as I could, which probably wasn't very quiet, all things considered.
I knew, or rather suspected, that the building closest to this tent was currently unused. At the very least, it wasn't decorated, and there hadn't been any raiders walking around it outside. It was my best option; the door was hanging off its hinges away from the doorframe, and the coast looked clear. I covered the three dozen yards in between in a matter of a few seconds. Not quite fast enough to outright escape detection from the incoming raiders. At least one of them saw me enter the building. I heard shouts as I bolted through the door, but any incoming shots missed horribly enough that they didn't even hit where I could hear them as I quickly took in my surroundings.
The room looked like the main room to a bar, complete with bartop, behind the counter area, scattered stools, and a few ruined booths. My immediate instinct was to dive behind the bar with my shotgun and wait for the raiders to walk through the door. Panic was strangely absent from my thoughts, fortunately, and I realized that if it was the first thing I thought of, it was the first thing they'd think of too. Instead I kept moving straight through the building, looking for an exit. There wasn't another door to be found, but I did find a staircase in the next room and took it without hesitation.
Upstairs had to be sleeping quarters or guest rooms, with a long hallway that split at the end of the hall with single doors down the length. I could hear the raiders entering the first level. Not good, I didn't have much time. I ran down the hall, looking for a door that wasn't locked. No luck, no luck, no luck, no lu--. The fourth one I tried stuck for a second, and then gave up, swinging into a room that was obviously lived in, and just as obviously not home to a raider. I slammed the door behind me and turned to inspect the room.
Surprise found a spot on my face when I saw, prominently displayed on the end-table next to a surprisingly comfortable looking bed, the figure of Pinkie Pie. Unreal. The one door that hadn't been locked. I felt like getting this lucky now would end up biting me in the flank later on.
Better not waste it now. I intended to just grab the figurine and hide, no questions asked, but when I enveloped it in my magic, the shock almost made me drop it. I couldn't really explain it. I felt... sharper. Like I could see and hear better than ever. I examined the statuette a little more closely. Around the bottom it read “Awareness! It was under “E”!” I didn't know exactly what that meant, but it felt significant.
Reality snapped back into focus. I heard the raiders rummaging around the building below me, making sure I wasn't hidden away on the ground floor before sweeping the upstairs. I could hear muffled mutterings through the floor as raiders called to one another that one part of a room or the other was clear. Dammit! If only I could hear what they were doing more clearly, I might be able to set up an ambush.
A sudden flash of inspiration struck me. I channeled a bit of magic into my horn, and carefully, tentatively, hopefully pressed it against the floor. My hearing dulled and became muffled for half a second, and then slowly came back into focus, but with one major difference. Now I could hear the raiders' every word.
“Stark, Cut, check upstairs. Blast, cover the way we came in. I'll check the basement. Move.”
I heard a chorus of affirmatives, and one quietly added “that ***** is going to pay. Health potions are expensive.” ****, the raider I thought was out of action was down there too. A small, ignored voice thought that these ponies didn't sound like raiders.
Think, think, think! How could I even the odds? There was the sound of footsteps headed up the stairs, I had maybe thirty seconds before they found my room, and me in it. I shifted my horn to the wall adjacent to the hallway they were in. Muffled voices flashed into clarity again, and I could hear everything. One of them was just muttering various profanities, most often “*****, ****, twat” and the like. I figured that was scoped-pistol raider. I still couldn't see them, and without that I couldn't set up anything that could possibly be guaranteed to get both of them.
I tried something else. My horn flared brighter, and the sound faded away entirely. Instead, it was replaced by a very blurry image of the raiders walking down the hallway. Disappointingly (if I could be disappointed at how awesome this newfound ability was), I could only see them from a point on the wall directly where my horn touched. No matter, now I could see everything. Including the grenades hung across the rear-most raider's bandoleer. Cue wicked grin.
I tried to use my telekinesis, but it felt magnitudes harder than usual. I strained, pouring every ounce of my power into pulling the pin on one of those grenades. A small voice in the back of my head was cheering about how awesome this was going to sound as a story I told my foals someday. I couldn't see it, eyes clenched shut in concentration, still magically staring at the grenades taunting me on the other side of the wall, but an overglow stretched around my horn, fully illuminating the room I was standing in. The strain was actually starting to hurt. If it didn't happen soon, I was going to be a sit--
The pin popped free with a metallic clink. Success! A wave of dizziness ended with me pulling my head away from the wall. Good thing, too. I heard the curse loud and clear even without eavesdropping, and the explosion that followed still knocked me to the floor, even through the door.
In retrospect, probably a very good thing that my horn came away from contact with the wall, or I would have seen the carnage happen firsthand. As it was, I still vomited when I staggered out of the room anyway, as soon as I saw the new wallpaper.
Hoofsteps thundered up the stairs as the two raiders downstairs rushed to investigate the explosion. I readied my shotgun and aimed down the hallway, half-ducked into the door to get the most cover I could. The first raider came charging into my field of vision and went down in a spectacular spray of blood as my shotgun slug buried itself deep in his torso. Holding down the bile was easier that time, although that might have been because bits and pieces of raider still decorated the hallway and made my expressionist painting session seem a little less significant.
I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. I'd killed and/or seriously injured four raiders, one of them twice without taking a single hit. There was just one thing that bugged me about this whole thing.
None of them felt like raiders.
The first one I'd killed I hadn't been close enough to get a good look at, but he hadn't reeked like the raiders in the house that I'd encountered first, and like most of the raiders we'd seen looked like they would smell like. I'd pulled the pin on the one decorating the hall without getting a really clear look at him. The one that I had first shot and then presumably knocked out with the grenade explosion (she didn't look quite dead yet) had been entirely justified in calling me all sorts of mean and hurtful names. After all, I did shoot her. The room I had just busied myself rummaging through was decidedly not a raider hovel, judging by the courtyard outside.
Who were these ponies?
I didn't have very much time to ponder my newfound question. A grenade sailed up the stairs and bounced down the hall. I quickly wrapped it in a field of my magic to send it flying back down the stairs to the stupid idiot who threw it up against what he knew had to be a unicorn.
It exploded before I even fully wrapped it in magic. The explosion blinded and deafened me momentarily, and opened a score of cuts along any exposed part of my coat. A dozen small cuts on my face and lower legs contributed a dull throbbing ache to my sensory issues and headache, and a few more major shrapnel wounds threatened to make major issues of themselves unless I got some kind of attention before trying to get anywhere exceptionally fast. All things considered, I was probably pretty lucky, but I sure didn't feel like it.
I staggered against the room door and fell over, deliberately directing my fall into the room instead of out into the hallway. I pried open my eyes and blinked rapidly, trying to clear the splotches before the last whatever-he-was came up after me. I staggered to my hooves, readying my shotgun.
The first indication I had that something was wrong was a nasty buck to my flank that knocked the wind out of me and dropped me back to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Dammit! That pony was either impossibly fast, or I'd taken far longer than I should have in recovering. I struggled to draw in air and struggle back upright. A hoof pressed against my neck put a stop the latter pretty quick.
In the time since the grenade went off, my ears had recovered from “completely deaf” to “bell tower ringing” to something that passed for listening devices. Well, for the most part, at least.
“... the hell you are or what the hell you think you're doing here, but I want to know right now where the **** you got this armor.” His request was punctuated with a none-too-subtle application of pressure with his hoof. Resisting or refusing to answer suddenly seemed much less attractive than it did a few seconds ago.
“Bo- -cough, hack- Bonesaw. Doctor in Cantilly. Sent me here to scout raiders.” I wasn't in a hurry to piss this pony off. Telling him whatever I thought he wanted to hear sounded like the best option available.
That only seemed to make him press harder, for reasons that made no sense to me, or, more probably, made no sense to any sane pony in general. “Don't lie to me, *****. Tell me. Where. Did. You. Get. This. Uniform!”
The pressure on my throat made it hard to breath, especially after everything that had just happened, and what was still going on, for that matter. “Not lying!” I gasped out. “That's what he told me.” I sucked in air. “Big buck, tan, golden-brown mane and tail. Cutie mark was a medical saw,” I spat out as fast as I could. I really didn't relish the thought of dying like my first raider.
Suddenly, the pressure was gone. I took a massive, shuddering gulp of air. No sooner had I started breathing regularly again was I roughly jerked to my feet to look my de-facto captor in the eyes. His face was pretty horribly scarred, missing half of an ear, what looked like massive claw marks running from left eye to his chin, reappearing on his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his armor. His coat was some kind of pale blue color, like the displays on my pipbuck, and his mane was a much darker blue. One eye was this red/pink color, and the other, the left one, was just a white sphere. He'd probably lost it when he got the scar.
“You're a lucky little ****, you know that? If you had just told me anything, and I do mean anything else, and you wouldn't have gotten back up. Ever. I'd have left you here for the raiders to have their fun with, especially after you did this to my team. But now, I want you to take a message back to the pretentious asshole that gave you this.”
I was very clearly deeply involved in something that went back more than just a raider camp. I gulped nervously. “And that is?” I probed, eager to get out of here, but also even more nervous about setting him off. He seemed to be neither the most stable nor the most... forgiving pony in the wastes.
There was a barely contained fury just waiting to find an unfortunate target, seething under a carefully controlled facade. “You tell him this, and exactly this: 'Sparky knows what you did, and you're next.' Word for ****ing word.” He stormed out the door and was down the stairs by the time I made it to the door.
The female unicorn that I'd already almost killed twice today gave a feeble stir. Looked like she wasn't dead after all. I wasn't above sucking up to the very-angry pony that had just exited ahead of me, and decided to help the poor mare. She was in bad shape. I assume she'd had a healing potion, because her face wasn't a bloody mess in and of itself. The shock, overpressure, and shrapnel from the grenade had ruptured something important. Blood was spilling from her mouth and nose, and her ears were missing the tips and also bleeding. Shrapnel had torn large holes in her barding, even if most of them hadn't plunged deep enough to do serious damage. She looked like she had maybe an hour without attention. Two, at the most.
I had a healing potion, but I was loathe to use it if I didn't have to. I checked through her bags (and unloaded her weapons as I found them, just in case) for anything that might help. There! She had another health potion. Another two, actually. I snuck one into my saddlebags even as I practically fed the other one to her.
I almost left right then and there, before she fully regained consciousness. All things considered, it would have been the smart thing to do. I'd almost killed her twice in the space of ten minutes. But, unfortunately, I'm not always the most clever pony to ever live.
She punched me in the face. I reeled back, blood flowing from my nose as she stood up. She punched me again. Have I mentioned just how stupid of an idea this was? Then she rummaged around in her bags, pulled out her pistol, and shot me.
She wasn't aiming to kill, just hurt, and badly. I couldn't really blame her, not really. It still hurt, a brilliant white pain shooting into my flank. It hurt a lot. Fortunately, it wasn't nearly as vital of an area as the last shot I took had gone. Getting shot in the ass is hardly as life-threatening as taking a shot to the chest.
“I know you've got a healing potion. Now we're even.” Well that was good, at least. It game me some cold comfort as I writhed in pain in the middle of the floor.
As she left, I popped the healing potion I took from her bags out of mine and downed it. Oh, Luna that was so much better. My shrapnel wounds closed back up, the bullet in my flank was ejected and the entry wound closed back up. My bruised neck even felt better. Now I could get back to my mis--
My mission. ****. How long had I spent doing this? I still had to find the supplies and rescue any captives I could before I launched the flare. Well, still had to find the supplies. I'd gotten a better look at the pile of “decoration” in the courtyard, and that pretty thoroughly disabused me of the thought that raiders kept prisoners long enough for there to still be a few I needed to help. I trotted downstairs, not really sure if I'd get shot at again or not. Fortunately, “Sparky,” or whatever his name actually was seemed to need me to get to Bonesaw alive. Good on him.
I searched the raider camp top to bottom, or as near as I could in ten more minutes. I found a dozen shotgun shells, another combat shotgun that I took in case I needed more parts, a pair of unused grenades, two (two!) more healing potions, and an assortment of other, smaller guns that I didn't particularly care about. Oh, and a cool hat. It was done in what I learned as a filly was “Appleoosan” style, with a wide brim to keep the sun out of your eyes. I thought I looked rather dashing.
Nowhere did I find supplies. The way Doc described it to me, the supplies-gone-missing were substantial, hard to miss. They weren't here, full stop. Not good. I high-tailed it out of the camp, reached the rendezvous point, and launched my magic flare.
Jasper coughed lightly behind me, making me jump. I hadn't even seen him there when I walked up, but he was there, nonchalant as a pony could be. I arched a quizzical eyebrow in his direction.
“I've been here for a while, now. The raiders followed me into the abandoned town. I had long enough to separate and cut down every single one of them in the time it took you to scout the camp and get back here.”
“That was fifteen raiders. You've got to be kidding me.” I was incredulous.
He just grinned at me. It was insufferable. “Alright, alright. I guess it doesn't matter what actually happened to them as long as we accomplished the objective.” There, diplomatic.
“And, aheh, in your case,l- looks like you picked up a little something, uh, extra,” he nickered, “nice hat.”
I couldn't really tell if he was being serious or sarcastic, so I took it in stride. “Why thank you. I think it's rather dashing.”
I filled him in on the details at the camp, about the not-raiders. He seemed surprised, especially at the part where their leader let me go (relatively) unharmed.
“...And he told me to tell Bonesaw that 'Sparky knows what you did, and you're next.'” I finished. “I have no idea what it means.”
He played it off as if it were a mystery to him too, but I saw the subtle change in his gait, the tightening of the stride. Whoever Sparky was, it must have spooked him. Curious. That was something to ask about sometime later, though, when we weren't still seven hours from Cantilly.
The inventory spell on my Pipbuck might have been wonderful at cataloging and sorting my items and notes, but I liked to go through it myself to keep a realistic handle on what I was carrying around with me. It was doing that I discovered the note.
'Stark Contrast – Mercenary at Arms
Contract information available through
the Manehattan area contract board.'
On the back was written: 'You've proven your worth. If you ever need a helping hoof, check in at the boards and ask for Stark. They'll know what to do.”
Well. That was certainly unexpected. Had I somehow gained an ally in the wastes by almost killing her? The concept was alien to me, but that didn't mean I was blind to the possible benefits. Having a hired gun might not be a bad idea out here from time to time. I'd sleep on it, at least for now.
I switched on the radio and searched for a channel to break the silence during a lull in the conversation on the way back; we didn't have so much to talk about that we'd fill the entire fourteen hours round trip with it. I eventually settled on a station. Some haunting but beautiful music was playing at the moment that I'd never heard before. Hardly a feat, but it was s till something new. More specifically, something new that didn't want to kill me.
“...let me get it right!” The song trailed off and I was left feeling strongly for whatever mare had been doing the singing. Beautiful.
“This is DJ Pon3, and that was Sweetie Belle, singing about that one great truth of the wasteland: every pony has done something they regret. And now, my little ponies, it’s time for the news! Now you ponies remember when I told you ‘bout those two ponies who crawled themselves out of Stable Two? Well...” Oh, so this station played the news, too. Excellent, I needed to find a way to keep up with the wasteland anyway. Then again, this 'Stable-Dweller' as the DJ called her sounded almost too good to be true. My confidence flagged a bit. Looks like I'd have to find a new channel.
I decided to humor it for a few more seconds. “In other news, it looks like one of the towns around Manehattan is about to get a whole lot safer. My sources tell me a pony no one in the area or anywhere has seen before walked into Everfree Mills and cleaned the place out. No more raiders. You know what that means...”
What. My brain practically shut down. That had happened literally hours ago. How the hell had this... DJ Pon3 even heard of it, much less gotten it on the air so fast?
“... and the locals, at least around Cantilly, just call her 'Barkeep.' Nice and simple, I like it. One last thing....”
Jasper, meanwhile, was just chuckling at my apparent cluelessness. When I asked him how the hell the DJ could already know something like that, let alone turn it into something so blatantly over-exaggerated, he just replied with, “DJ Pon3 always knows. If there's one good thing in the wasteland that never changes, that's it.”
Okay then. I gave up trying to figure it out. Besides, being known in the area always comes with a few perks. Maybe I could give this a try.
My mind was awash with possibilities as the next Sweetie Belle song drifted forlornly out of my pipbuck's speakers.
Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Open Season -- In combat, you do +10% damage against male opponents. Outside of combat, you'll sometimes have access to unique dialogue options when dealing with the opposite sex.
Quest Perk: Magic Eavesdrop – Using a bit of your magic, you can now listen or see through solid walls as if they were doors or windows just by pressing your horn again them.
Companion Perk: Expert Survivor – As long as Jasper remains in the party, your Survival is increased by 10.
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This is crazy. In a really good way. :D
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Welp, this is the first piece of Leviathans I've actually finished. It clocks in at just a hair above 2400 words from start to finish. I'm not really satisfied with the ending, to be honest, but I also wasn't sure how to make it any better than it is already. I ended up rewriting it five or six times before I settled on this one.
If you're unsure what Leviathans is, be sure to check out this (http://www.monstersinthesky.com) site. It's created by Catalyst Game Labs, which are the same guys who're running BattleTech and Shadowrun lately. For a general idea that ignores lots and lots of subtle things: 1910 Europe, except now there are flying battleships.
Anyway, comments, questions, concerns, thrown refuse are all appreciated below. Enjoy!
Full Speed Ahead!
The moon hung low in the east, and stars speckled the rest of the night sky, casting a pale, ghostly light across the hull of the Opale. The destroyer chugged quietly across the sky a thousand meters above the ground, waves cresting and sparkling in the faint illumination. She and her two nearby sisters turned as one, slewing starboard in perfect synchronicity to stay precisely three kilometers off the Norman shore, the deck listing faintly in the direction of the turn.
Quartier-maître de 1ère classe Aldric Robert clipped his safety line near the gaping hole in Opale's side, admiring the view. No matter how many times he gazed out across over the rolling sea and distant country-side of his home country, he couldn't suppress the feeling of awe that washed over him. Truly, he and his countrymen were masters of the air. How could they not, when their only real opponents were those British pigs on the other side of the Channel? He inhaled deeply, feeling the salt-tinged air tickle his nostrils, and then turned to examine the strange apparatus secured firmly to the decking near the hole.
Aerial torpedoes looked very little like their seaborne counterparts, he mused. There was very little sleek or graceful about it, and it was enormous in comparison with its watery brethren. It rose easily to his chest, nearly a meter and a half tall, and was even wider than that, shaped like a lozenge when viewed from the front, and extended three full meters from nose to tail, propped up on stubby, wheeled legs. It was, in his estimation, a very ugly piece of machinery. There was only so much that superior French engineering could do to make something as crude as a torpedo pleasing to the eyes.
What the torpedo lacked in aesthetics of shape, however, it more than made up for with the satisfying whir of a superbly crafted, well-oiled machine, and a few minutes later with the heavy whump of an explosive detonation. He smiles grimly at that particular thought. He may dislike the the ugly bulk of the torpedo, but he very much liked what it represented. A display of French supremacy, and a threat to the British. There was no finer purpose for a machine to fulfill.
And that brought him back to the reason his section was huddled around the device, the torpedo launch hatch wide open, while several of his compatriots scurried over the finer details, readying the torpedo for launch. Even as large as it was, this particular torpedo was easily a third smaller than a normal one, and just as much lighter. A lighter torpedo required less electroid to function, which in turn required less power to produce lift, and allowed a smaller, less-powerful engine to be used to propel it toward the enemy. Or, as the engineers of the Fleet de Volée had designed, reach 30% further than her larger sisters and maintain the same explosive payload.
Testing new equipment was always risky business, and tonight was no exception. This would be the second flight of the new type of torpedo, the first having come in the previous day, under the watchful eye of Robert's opposite watch counterpart. In what seemed like no time at all, Opale's gunnery officer, Sous-Lieutenant aérien Chastain, broke him from his thoughts with a whistle and a beckoning wave. “Robert! You're up, final check and clear!”
The quick, terse order brought him fully back to his duties in an instant. “Oui, Sous-Lieutenant!” he called back, scurrying over to the torpedo and re-clipping his safety link to the conveniently provided snap-hooks on the ceiling. His hands flew over the engine and electroid tanks, searching for imperfections or imprecisely done checks. He knew exactly what he was doing, with over three years of checking torpedoes on ships like Opale and her sisters.
The rating who'd performed the initial checks had done well. He found nothing that needed fixing or adjustment, and moves to stand up, his hand rising in an affirmative gesture. As he stood, a small flicker caught his eye. He froze, eyes darting across the torpedo's hull, instantly as alert as he's ever been. Torpedoes, by their nature, are very volatile to both their users and their targets. Corrosive, explosive fuels power the engines, their increased power deemed an acceptable trade-off to use in something that's designed to throw itself upon the enemy and explode. On the other side of the coin, working with such caustic substances is just asking for an accident to happen. He would take no chances that there was something would go wrong, that spilled fuel would prematurely ignite and turn the serene section of ship into a raging inferno.
Another several minutes of careful inspection revealed nothing out of the ordinary, and he tentatively raised his hand in the 'all-clear' gesture again. Sous-Lieutenant Chastain looked at him with a questioning expression, eyes nervously darting over to the last passengers in the compartment. As befit the initial field test of new equipment, the First Officer was also present in the compartment, and several higher ranking officers awaited the display topside, several of them directly involved in the project. A disaster now would reflect poorly on everyone in the section, and no one bore the brunt of criticism more than the officer whose section it was. He may not particularly like the Sous-Lieutenant, but he wasn't about to invite disaster just to see him finished, not by a long chalk, and especially not when he'd get a fairly stern reprimand himself. No, he had to make sure that absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary here.
His all-clear solidified, and he nodded emphatically, stepping away from the primed, ready to go torpedo, retreating to the bulkhead wall and reclipping his safety link again. One could never be too careful in a gany, no matter how experienced one happened to be. Complacency was the leading cause of disaster, after all.
Never once did it cross his mind that complacency need not be involved for disaster to strike. Sometimes, it's just an accident. Sometimes, it's just rotten luck. And some other times, deliberate sabotage. Robert would never be able to piece together exactly why the test went so horribly wrong, but he got to see every single agonizing second of it as it happened.
As he turned to look at the torpedo as an Aviateur wheeled it toward the hatch, he was in a perfect position to see the thick, bright flash of electricity along the hull, at the exact instant that the rating started the torpedo's engine. He had half a second to watch in horror at the signs of an impending flashover before the mass of electroid converted itself entirely back to electricity. The arcing discharges illuminate the rating's face for a brief second, blissfully unaware that his doom is upon him before the fuel in the torpedo detonates.
The spark ignites the fuel reserves, volatile fuel exploding violently in a blazing orange-red fireball of expanding incandescent gasses and flame. Time practically stopped for the youthful torpedo rating, and he was unable to wrench his eyes away from the disaster as it unfolds. Until the explosive payload detonated as well, that is.
A powerful shockwave lifted him off his feet and slammed him into the bulkhead headfirst. Stars exploded into his vision and then blackness. He had no idea how long he was out for, but it can't have been more than a few seconds, as when he comes to, flames engulf the greater part of the compartment. Scattered bits and pieces of what used to be the torpedo litter the floor, some of them embedded in the solid steel of the bulkheads. The unfortunate Aviateur who'd unwittingly set off the explosion was nowhere to be found. Robert had the sickening thought that there wasn't anything to be found of him.
He pressed aside the morbid thought, hauling himself to his feet. Or at least, he tried to. The moment he put weight on his left arm, it buckled and sent a white-hot pain lancing through him. He didn't stop to find out what the problem is, taking his weight off his injured limb and hauling himself to his feet via his clip.
Now that he was back on his feet, unsteady as he may be, he surveyed the damage done. It was immediately crystal clear that the compartment is ruined and will require extensive repair to get back into working order. The torpedo launch tube was easily half again larger than it should have been, and the bulkhead to the next compartment down the beam of the ship was warped and distorted, the hatch completely unreachable. Fires and scorch marks decorate every available surface, and some that didn't even exist before the explosion. He immediately scans for anyone else of his section that may have been hurt. Aside from himself, there had been three people in the torpedo compartment; Sous-Lieutenant Chastain, the Aviateur that Robert knew was dead, and Opale's First Officer.
Thick, noxious smoke billows from the flames, filling the compartment at an alarming rate despite the huge hole in the hull of the ship. The deck tilts dangerously under his feet; the torpedo detonation must have destabilized one of the trim tanks on Opale's starboard side, making keeping his balance that much more difficult, and causing the lighter than air smoke to fill up in the gaping wound before spilling into the night air. His body is suddenly wracked with painful coughing. He'd have to search for the missing officers quickly before the smoke forced him to abort.
First thing's first, he thinks grimly, reaching up to unhook his safety line to allow him to move freely. Predictably, the latching mechanism is ruined. He grimaces, not thinking twice before flipping out a small blade and cutting the rope tethering him to Opale. One misstep would send him hurtling out of the ship and into the sea below. He brushes the thought aside, knowing without a doubt that his priorities must be to save the lives of his compatriots first, and think of his own second. Only a cowardly British pig would hold his own life above those of his crewmates!
The floor was certainly treacherous, strewn with crumpled and twisted metal, sticking out of bulkheads, the ceiling, and the floor at random intervals. Sharp daggers launched from the torpedo's detonation stand embedded in solid steel centimeters deep, a testament to the power of the aerial bomb.
Aldric pulls himself around a curtain of flame and smoke and finally spots Sous-Lieutenant Chastain. A gasp rises unbidden to his lips as he sees the officer's condition, a wicked sliver of metal protruding from his shoulder, pinning him right to the bulkhead. The floor pitches underneath him as the helm compensates for the damaged trim tank, slamming him into the nearest wall, and landing him directly on his injured arm. He cries out in pain as he feels something shift unpleasantly in his forearm. He claws through a red haze of pain, dedicated to reaching the Sous-Lieutenant and getting him to safety.
Fighting through the kind of pain attendant with a broken arm is easier thought than done, but somehow Aldric manages. He reaches the gunnery officer, and then has to contend with actually releasing him from the wall without exacerbating the wound in his shoulder. That would hardly be a cake walk under the best of circumstances, and with the use of only one arm, no safety gear, and a time limit strictly enforced by the growing cloud of noxious black smoke the difficulty is incalculable.
When retelling the tale in a tavern or any other easily impressed audience, Aldric embellishes, as any story teller is wont to do. In his case, he mightily rips out the offending shard of metal with his bare hands, hauls the Sous-Lieutenant over his shoulder, and staggers back to safety, hacking and coughing his very lungs onto the floor before collapsing into the arms of the damage control team as they arrive. He boldly refuses treatment for his arm, instead choosing to wait until the fate of everyone in the compartment is confirmed before retiring from his post and only then seeking assistance in the infirmary.
The truth is, he doesn't remember. He remembers stumbling on a piece of warped torpedo hull and slamming into the bulkhead again, and a blinding pain in his arm, and that's the last thing. The next thing he knew, he woke in the infirmary, arm wrapped tightly in a pristine white cast, his hands cut and scarred across the palms, and a terribly sore lump on his forehead, Sous-Lieutenant Chastain occupying the bed next to him with his arm in a sling and a bandage around his forehead. He recalls nothing about what he did, how he did it, or what feats of personal strength he accomplished. He only remembers waking up in the infirmary the next day, in the bed next to the gunnery officer with a thick cast on his arm and a splitting headache.
* * * * * *
Three days later, quartier-maître de 1ère classe Aldric Robert stood in the courtyard of a Paris hospital. In just a few more days, he would be discharged, if not quite back to duty on Opale. He still didn't know exactly what he'd managed in the thick, smoke-choked compartment, but it had been enough. The next day he'd awoken in Opale's infirmary the next bed over from Sous-Lieutenant Chastain, and he knew instantly that he'd succeeded.
Now he gazed in the direction of the sunset, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, banishing the thought of that acrid smoke from his mind. He'd succeeded, and though the torpedo might have failed, he had not. His country had not, and that was the most important.
Every Frenchman with half a mind knew that conflict with Britain was inevitable. Hundreds of years of conflict and war proved that time and again. It was only a matter of time. When it happened, he, along with so many other thousands of loyal French patriots would show those British pigs just what a hundred years of progress could do, compared to a hundred years stagnating on top.
He turns back to the hospital with a smile, making his way inside. That particular torpedo had failed. Others would not. He would see the torpedo bay of another gany in due time. There would be more torpedoes, and he would be just as ready then.
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Not bad, not bad at all. Even though I didn't follow the link until after I read it, it was still not too hard to understand :). One thing though, you keep changing from past to present tense throughout. For example, the second paragraph starts in the past tense, but switches to the present tense for the last sentence.
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Yeah, that's been a problem with me lately. #P
I went through and fixed most of it in the first half, but I'm way too tired to get through it all tonight.
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So, I wrote this last night after my brain wouldn't let me sleep. Folks on #bp at o-dark-thirty got to read it, but I thought I'd post it here now that I'm conscious again and off work.
The Biggest Liar
Richard Baxter never lied.
Mr. Baxter never liked politics. For a man who never lied, the byzantine deals and compromise that defined modern government left a bad taste in his mouth. Why would an honest person want to be a politician? He could never think of a good reason.
Mr. Baxter's neighbors respected him. He maintained his property, respected his husband, and treated his children properly. “Richard's an alright sort,” they said of him, “He always does the right thing.” Richard liked being respectable. It came naturally to him. Mr. Baxter liked his neighborhood. The streets were clean. His children could play with the other boys and girls safely. People were friendly. The mayor kept a good handle on things. Mr. Baxter enjoyed life.
Eventually the mayor died, or resigned, or retired. A new one got elected. A couple years passed, and the streets aren't as clean anymore. People weren't as friendly any more. The neighborhood didn't feel as safe anymore. His friends pleaded with him. “Richard, run for office. You'd be much better than this.” He didn't listen. Mr. Baxter never liked politics. No one opposed the new mayor.
More years went by. His children didn't like to play outside anymore; they didn't feel safe. The streets were dirty. Vacant lots dotted the neighborhood, grass growing out of control. “Richard, please,” the neighborhood begged, “We can't keep living like this.” He wanted so badly to not listen, but he couldn't lie to himself. They were right.
Mr. Baxter ran for office. His neighborhood voted for him. The next neighborhood over, too, and the one past that. Enough people voted for him that he won, to his surprise. To his even greater surprise, Mr. Baxter didn't hate politics as much as he thought he did. Running a town was easy. He didn't have to lie or scheme or compromise to do what had to be done.
Soon the streets were clean again. People felt safe outside their own homes. Businesses opened up, schools thrived. Mr. Baxter's plans worked. The town came back to life. People respected him even more than before. “Mr. Baxter's an alright mayor,” they said of him, full of pride, “he always does the right thing.” Richard liked being respectable. It came naturally to him. Richard liked his town.
Years went by. Mr. Baxter's town flourished, even while their neighbors wilted and withered. The rest of the county suffered despite his town's success. The state's legislature was deadlocked on several key issues. Their neighbors pleaded with him. “Mayor Baxter, run for office. You'd be much better than this.” He wanted so badly to not listen, to stay with his town, but he couldn't lie to himself. He knew he could do better.
Mr. Baxter ran for office. His town voted for him. The next town over, too, and the one past that. Enough people voted for him that he won. He wasn't surprised. State legislature was different, though. Here he was just one neighbor in a very important neighborhood. Here he had to make deals in order to accomplish anything. Sometimes those deals involved things the people in his town wouldn't like. He made them anyway, because he couldn't lie to himself. He knew it was for the best, but his people couldn't know about it.
Years went by. Mr. Baxter's peers respected him. He maintained his county and treated his people properly. He didn't have as much time for his husband anymore. His children graduated and moved out. He never talked to his neighbors anymore. But it was all for the best. He was making life better for everyone.
Eventually the governor died, or resigned, or retired. Mr. Baxter saw an opportunity to do even more. He ran for office, but the campaign was expensive. Several companies offered to help him out, in exchange for favors later. Mr. Baxter accepted their help, because he couldn't lie to himself. He knew it was for the best, but his people couldn't know about it.
The people in his county voted for him. The people in the next county over, too, and the one after that. Enough people voted for him that he won. He would have been surprised if the result was closer.
Governor Baxter liked being governor. He could help all the people in his state. Not everyone agreed with him. He just ignored them. What did they know, anyway? He was the one in office, not them. He helped out the companies that helped him win. Sometimes, things worked out and the towns they picked flourished. Others, the streets ended up less clean. Children didn't like to play outside anymore. Vacant lots sprouted tall grass. Governor Baxter didn't really pay attention to those places. He couldn't lie to himself. He knew that it was for the best, but his people wouldn't understand.
Years passed. One of his state's senators died, or resigned, or retired. Governor Baxter saw an opportunity to do even more. This campaign was even more expensive than the last. More companies offered to help him out, in exchange for favors later. Mr. Baxter accepted their help, because he couldn't lie to himself. He knew it was in his best interests. His people couldn't know about it.
The people in his district voted for him. He was willing to bet that the people in the next district over would have, too, and even the next state over. He would have been surprised if they hadn't.
Senator Baxter liked being a senator. It was a new neighborhood, but he knew what to do by now. Not everyone agreed with him, but this time he manipulated them. If they wouldn't agree with him, he found something they didn't want their people to know, and make them agree with him. His popularity soared. He couldn't lie to himself. He knew it was for the best, but the country wouldn't understand. His political power grew. He was in charge. People listened to him.
His husband didn't. His children didn't. They wanted their husband and father back. He just ignored them. What did they know, anyway? He was the one in office, not them.
Senator Baxter helped out the companies that helped him win. Sometimes, things worked out and the counties they picked flourished. Others, the streets ended up less clean. Children didn't like to play outside anymore. Vacant lots sprouted tall grass. Senator Baxter didn't really pay attention to those places. He couldn't lie to himself. He knew that it was for the best, and that the people didn't understand.
Senator Baxter wasn't satisfied with just being a senator. He decided to run for the last office. This time he sought out the companies. He needed their money for the campaign. He made promises. He made backroom deals with rivals and enemies. When those didn't work, he blackmailed. He extorted. In all his years' experience he had mastered politics.
The people in his state voted for him. The people in the next state over did, too, and the people in the one after that. Enough people voted for him that he won. In private, he spat at the people that didn't.
President-Elect Baxter put his hand on a book. He raised his right hand.
Richard Baxter never told the truth. Not even to himself.
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That was quite good (I think it would be even better if the last line were another repetition, not an explicit inversion; this lets the story speak for itself)
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Whoa, I might have to read through this thread some time. I enjoyed reading that.
I should probably check this board out in general, I've paid very little attention to it.
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That was quite good (I think it would be even better if the last line were another repetition, not an explicit inversion; this lets the story speak for itself)
If it were another repetition, would there be any point to keeping the second sentence, or does its presence mar the bookends?
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I think you should keep it, it doesn't mar the bookend.