[FO:E] The Northern Wasteland of Equestria 1

[BladeofObliviom]

[Striking Black Gold]

The ghoul does a double take, ignoring the magic conversation for the moment. She's not a unicorn, so she's not sure what she could add anyway.

"Wait, did you just say that you actually found the stuff she was talking about?"

[TheAmishPirate]

[While not exactly made of beans, all that carbonation might do the trick too.]

Fleetwing half-opened one of his saddlebags, showing off the multicolored bottles of soda. "Sure did. Almost thought these ones here were more traps, with the way they were glowing. Hay, I didn't know Sparkle Cola made more than...well, Sparkle Cola." He patted the other bulging saddlebag. "Though we got enough of the normal stuff too. Judging by all the bottles lying around, there must've been enough soda there at one point to fill a river."

[PurityIcekiller]

[These Puns Were Really A Gas]

Violetta rolled her eyes at the ghoul. "Like he said. Good to see your ears work."

She then turned to Gleam. "Well, I figured out that I can heal wounds and create fire. Not in that order, though. You should pick up your other abilities soon enough."

[MCerberus]

Manehatten - Basement of Morale

Ghouls. At this point they're one of the least-deadly foes in the wasteland, if not in giant numbers. Good thing even in that case they have serious fire power.

Scoops doesn't need that to deal with the short-range creatures. She waits until the others get a burst off before running in to ninja-slash.

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

"When a unicorn has sort-of lived as long as I have one tends to pick up a few useful tricks," Sour replies matter of factly. She doesn't appear to be hiding her ghoulish nature. Aside from that spell that makes her look less horrific. But that's probably more of a personal thing than one might think.

Remembering one's self and keeping busy are the two surest ways to stave of feral insanity.

"And yes. I disabled them on the way up. Swiss can cause considerable damage to machinery when she puts her mind to it."

The changeling rubs a hoof against her chest. "I don't like to brag..."

"The first order of business is to shut down the robot production and destroy as many of the machines as possible. Getting at the maneframe itself would be much more difficult," Sour reasons. Probably talking about 'Friend Computer'. Though best not to use that word around Vinyl.

Ah yes...Swiss' goop magic.
Stuff.

Something else that kind of freaks Down out about her.
"Alright then. So we get to production and let Swiss do her work.
The biggest issue is likely to be just how many turrets and mobile defenses there are."
How many sentinels or foalbots are down there? She doesn't doubt the little robots are dangerous, after they just got attacked by one, but can they all be moved to defend their home just as viciously?

"How far in do we need to go?"
Details! Down loves them!


May be best to just carry on and explain on the way.

[Rebonack]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Who says they aren't talking and walking? Talking and walking are a great combination of things!

"I can sneak by whatever's down there, no problem!" Swiss proclaims as she nears the inevitable catwalk above industrial machinery that seems to occupy every single pre-war manufacturing building. "AIs and sensors have real trouble with Glamor. They never think to question the reality they perceive."

And with that the changeling begins sneaking! Once she's a good five feet away focusing on her becomes dreadfully difficult. It's almost as if one's senses simply desire to be turned elsewhere.

Nothing to see here, move along...

And just what's down there?

An assembly line.

A huuuuuge assembly line manufacturing foalbots. Another set of machines constructing what must be the 'sentinels'. Vaguely akin to the Mister Handy line of robots... though only vaguely. Clusters of red visual sensors at the front and a nest of at least a dozen manipulator cables behind. They look akin to a cross between a spider, a fly, and a squid.

And their roundish bodies are at least the size of a pony without even considering all those limbs.

Nasty things...

"I have confidence in her abilities. But I'm not going to bet everything on them," Sour comments as she gazes out at the factory. "So I think it might be prudent if we keep attention on ourselves while she does her work. Does anypony agree?"

[Chaotic Bob]

[FRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Frimdark is much better than drimdark.

"Urgh..."
That trick is mentally painful. Maybe not literally so, but knowing something is there, and then being nudged away just feels wrong.

At some point, Down rubs the front of her mask.
"Keeping attention on ourselves shouldn't be too hard. Pick a target and make it showy."
Like those definitely-not-intimidating Sentinels!
"The...more complicated looking robots should probably be the primary focus. I imagine they're more dangerous. Destroy that line first?"

What even inspired those things? They don't seem like something any of the Ministries would have tried to go for.

[Rebonack]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Flashy?

Hoo boy!

Sour can certainly do flash!

Her horn begins to glow with a pink aura of magic moments before brilliant ribbons of lightning arc from the bone and go dancing across the assembly line! Machines crack and spark as the neon blue bolts dance across them in a scene as destructive as it is beautiful.

Rye backs away from the others and sets up her beam rifle, taking pot-shots at the sentinels as soon as they begin to move.

And Corn?

He jumps straight off one of the catwalk and lands on top of one of the machines like a steel-shod meteor.

Swiss, meanwhile, is busy being furtive.

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Down stares at the lightning spell for a moment.

...well. That's definitely "showy".
And as good a signal as any to begin the attack!


Backing away from the apparent Mistress of Lightning, the pegasus readies up her rifles and follows Rye's example: attack the ones that start moving, coordinating towards whichever aren't already being hit by something. She'll try to focus on helping Corn, since he seems to be the one jumping into the most danger.

Thankfully, they're massive enough where missing shouldn't ever be a problem, hopefully...

Trick is going to be putting them down quick enough where they don't become a threat.

[Rebonack]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

And all the while?

Vinyl is hiding in a nearby alcove. She seems more or less terrified.

Sour keeps up her spell, luminescent ribbons of lightning dancing and leaping across the machines! Each time the streams jump to a new robot the thing begins to twitch and convulse as its systems are swiftly overloaded! Though...

She can't possibly keep this up forever. Unicorns have to run out of magic eventually! And that's just as true for ghoul unicorns! Eventually the spell pauses and Sour begins digging through her saddlebags for something...

Rye keeps up the fire! Pew pew! Several of the spidery looking robots are beginning to crawl across walls and ceiling to reach our heroes!

Corn is right in the midst of the fray, drawing a great deal of attention from the robots. Saws and claws and scalding beams of magical energy are all being heaped against him, but the huge earth pony seems content to simply shrug off the injury that manages to get through his impressive armor. He's a veritable cyclone of destruction down there, bucking and stomping anything that gets close with his spiky armor and absolutely impossible strength.

Sour pulls a glowing green flask out of her saddlebags and chugs it in one go before lighting up her horn again. Once more lightning begins to play over the machines! But this time around...? Is that... Is that music coming from the blazing ribbon of electricity?

Corn sure seems to think so! Because he just started singing, his voice coming through rather oddly from his helmet.

Rye stows her rifle before glacing over at Down. "Keep us covered. And thanks for the help." And then vaults over the railing, her power hooves firing up as she descends and smashes a clean hole straight through a sentinel looming up behind Corn.

The three members of TRSG! have an incredible harmony between their offense and defense alike. And with Down frying anything that gets through these robots hardly stand a chance.

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Vinyl, for better or worse, is rather completely out-of-sight, out-of-mind for the moment...
Down has much more pressing issues than a musically-inclined abomination.

Like trying not to be faintly envious, watching these ponies fight together, as she tries to keep missed-machines from tearing them apart.
Reminded of her own squad, before they got separated at the Everfree.

Also has to try to not be perturbed by the fact that they seem to be playing music while they smash deadly robots. What sane pony does that?

And yet, in the back of her throat, she finds herself humming just a teensy bit, as she scorches and disintegrates their foes.

[Rebonack]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

What sane pony sings whilst destroying deadly robots?

The answer is simple.

This isn't a thing sane ponies do.

Corn's fighting style is as simple as it is overwhelming. He crashes through foes and attacks alike with all the subtlety of a landslide.

Rye is graceful and flowing, moving with seemingly impossible agility as she fights on her hind hooves. She twists and tumbles, anticipating attacks before they're ever thrown and responding in kind with a flurry of precise blows. Every now and again she whips out her beam shotgun and blows a chunk out of an offending robot.

Sour is simply frying the crap out of things and chugging a vial of radioactive goop every time her horn starts to ache.

And then? Here comes Swiss charging at full speed! A conical wave of livid green faerie fire blazes in front of her as she comes weaving through the fray! "Beep beep beep time to run!"

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

Down simply stands her ground, firing away at whichever target seems most appealing...
It seems that when others are taking the mantle of "Utterly Insane Pony", she's an almost boring combatant. Mechanically efficient.

At least, up until Swiss appears running in a manner that the pegasus finds eerily familiar.
"Pack it up and MOVE, ponies!"
They probably know already, but habits die hard.

She's shifting her feet to prepare her own run, but she won't stop offering her covering fire until her present squad-mates extricate themselves from the fight.

[Rebonack]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

"All to me!" Sour calls out to those in the melee below.

Corn rears up and Rye takes him by the front hooves. The huge earth pony then whips the mare around in the tight arc as she charges her power hooves and delivers a series of swift stomps to the robots edging around them. With their foes battered away Corn hurls Rye up onto the catwalk before crouching low and LEAPING up himself!

Rye lands in a tight roll and pops to her hooves running.

Corn impacts moments later, causing the whole catwalk to shudder.

Sour snags Vinyl in an aura of magic and beats a hasty retreat.

Swiss takes an energy beam through the wing and face-plants awkwardly on the platform before scrambling to her hooves. "Just what I need," she grouses. "More holes."

Run away RUN AWAY!

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

"Maybe the next shot will go through one of those instead of you."
Did Down joke at Swiss?

Probably not.
She's just firing back at whatever hit her, then turning on her hooves to flee after. Rearguard she shall be, trusting her armor to take one or two hits safely enough.
Better than Swiss would take them, anyway.

Back to FLEEING FROM BOMBS.

[Benson]

Manehatten Ruins-Horseshoe Tower-Ministry of Morale- Sublevel 1 Basement Floor- 1:04 PM

Fox Trot


Ghouls, hah, I let those damn zombies have it. Ra tata tata ra tata tata baby! I shot away with my assault rifles, freshly stocked during our mini break not too long ago.

[Rebonack]

[Ministry of Morale Basement]

Rawr, ghoul pony attack! Probably the biggest downside to being a ghoul pony is the fact that unless they can get their hooves or teeth on somepony they aren't that much of a threat.

Flamethrower and plasma cannon lob some horrible destruction into the midst of the mob whilst Foxy opens up with his assault rifles! As for Surprise? She aims to grab Scoops' tail when the mare attempts to run into the middle of melee.

"Nopeie dopie you silly filly! That's a bad idea!" Surprise laughs.

Consider the fire. And the plasma. And the bullets. Is charging into the middle of that a really good idea?

"If you try to stab a ghoul in the middle of a firefight you're going to have a baaaaaad time!" the cyberpony chirps. "That should come as no surprise at all!"

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

FLEEEEEEE!

"I actually had a rocket propelled grenade go whizzing through one of my leg holes once," Swiss laughs as she charges up the hallway and levitates a detonator out of her saddle bags. "That one was a really close call. This though? This wasn't that bad. And now it is time for a stable-shacking kaboom!" she flips the safety off the detonator and hits the big yellow button with a happy face on it. "BEEP!"

A stable-shaking kaboom shortly follows.

[Chaotic Bob]

[GRIMDARK Adventures in Stable 29]

"Being walking cheese has its uses after all..."
Down might smile with that, but instead stumbles faintly with the explosion.
No matter how many of those you run from, the ground moving like that is still horrible.

At least she's learned not to fall on her face anymore, and just keep running.
Stopping can mean dying a fiery death, so there's a big "nope" to that, in her mind.

Hopefully some sort of chain reaction doesn't happen and continue to kaboomify the stable...

[Rebonack]

[Adventures in Stable 29]

Down probably shouldn't have thought that.

The explosion is quickly followed by another. A really big one. Followed by several smaller blasts and a sound of rending steel. And then another explosion that knocks the team clean off their feet and easily dwarfs the original.

"That wasn't one of mine!" the changeling laughs, her voice somewhere between fear and exhilaration.

"I've kept track of how far we are under ground," Sour says as she throws back another flask of green goop and lights up her horn. "I'm going to overshoot to be on the safe side. Be ready to catch somepony."

fzzzzzztFLAHS!

Our heroes should appear about ten feet above the pavement some distance away from the compound that houses the Stable Entrance, disoriented and covered in soot.

Swiss' wings begin buzzing and she catches herself. Rye lands with incredible grace. Corn smashes into an old car with all the elegance of a sack of concrete. And Sour uses her TK to slow the descent of Vinyl.

She hits the ground and one of her legs snaps at an awkward angle. The unicorn grits her teeth and manages to avoid crying out.

[Lycan 01]

Adventures Above Stable 29

About a half-dozen raiders are setting up camp when TRSG!, Down, and Vinyl materialize. One's tending a campfire, two are playing a game of horse-shoes with rib bones, and three are idly milling around standing guard.

One of the guards is smoking a cigarette. The smouldering cig drops from his lips as his jaw drops and his eyes boggles.

"Looks like Hearth's Warmin' Eve came early, boys!" a blue unicorn leers as he hefts a duct-tape covered assault rifle and racks the bolt.

A green earth pony throws down his crowbar and takes off sprinting in the opposite direction. Clearly he does not agree with his colleague's statement.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Adventures Above Stable 29]

Down proceeds to experience the incredibly alien sensation of teleportation for the very first time in her life.

Which is probably why she doesn't catch herself as they materialize.
That and her left wing still seems to be bleeding from an earlier wound, even as the armored cover around it is ever-so-slowly repairing itself.
"Oh sky, aaaah!"

Her composure is completely shot as she falls.

On the bright side, at only a ten foot drop, it won't kill her if someone doesn't help.
Which is probably good, those raiders deserve immediately attention.

[Rebonack]

[Manehatten - Outside Stable 29]

"I've got you!" Swiss calls out before zipping down and aiming to grab Down before the pegasus face-plants into the pavement. Pegasus are tough, yeah. But not tough like Corn. That's for sure.

Should the changeling manage to grab the Enclave warrior the both of them will suddenly seem incredibly inconsequential to the Raiders. No reason to pay attention to them. In fact, it isn't even worth the energy to acknowledge their existence.

Close contact makes it all the easier for Swiss to pick up on the emotions of ponies. The trepidation and weariness Down feels toward her is a rather unpleasant, cold, greasy sort of thing. Not at all nice.

Corn gives a rather loud laugh as he rises to his hooves, his body knitting itself back together and visibly erasing the wounds he had sustained in battle just a few minutes prior. He gives himself a good shake causing several crushed, burned robot parts to dislodge from his heavy barding.

[Speech]"Well boys, y'know what they say. Shoot fer the moon and iffin ya miss ya land in the stars," the huge earth pony drawls from behind his helmet's face-plate. "Now seein' as we just bucked ah few dozen killer robots and done blown up a whole stable I'm reckon ya might be settin' yer sights a little too high. But iffin ya wanna sleep with the stars today I reckon we can oblige yah."

[Lycan 01]

Holiday Spirits

The raiders stare.

The one with the assault rifle grins nervously. "Uh... Like I said. Hearth's Warming Eve. Um... Presents... For you..."

He lowers his weapon, gives a cheesy grin, then turns and runs. "Happy holidays!"

The rest of the bandits run like scared little fillies, too.


Raiding the camp will turn up a few dozen caps, a couple of potions, and various small-arms rounds.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Manehatten - Outside Stable 29 and Warm Hearths]

Surprisingly, Down doesn't seem to be flipping out about the physical contact.

Probably because she's still mentally flipping out about how her "insides felt like they were everywhere but inside" and other unpleasantries.
Teleportation feels so wrong.

Instead, she's just sort of half-rigid and half-twitchy in Swiss' grasp.

"Do...do...unicorns do that...regularly?"

The pegasus hasn't even noticed that there ever were raiders in the first place.

[Rebonack]

[Manehatten - Outside Stable 29]

Well. That reply gets a laugh out of Corn. "And a very merry Hearth's Warmin' Eve to you folks too!"

Rye is busy gathering up those potions and caps whilst Sour fiddles with her leg. Just have to get it immobilized before she tries to heal it... The earth pony approaches with the potions. "Better for knitting the bones. Don't over-tax yourself again, Moondancer."

Vinyl has been staring blankly at the sky shortly after being set down on the ground. The foalbot hasn't stopped yet.

Swiss gingerly sets down Down and grins that snaggle-toothed grin of hers. "Haha! Hardly. Most unicorns can manage TK and a few other minor tricks. Teleportation's a pretty high end spell. Some changelings can even pull it off, though I think it works a bit different. That kind of magic is way out of my league though."

And awkward pause.

Then Swiss backs away a few paces.

"Sorry about... uuh... about touching you. Y'know. When I caught you. You don't like that, right?"

Rye quirks an eyebrow at the changeling. "Allomyrina is respecting personal space to try to make a good impression?" the earth pony comments with a ghost of a smile. "I didn't see that one coming."

Swiss sticks her tongue out at the mare.

[Luka]

[These Puns Were Really A Gas]

Violetta rolled her eyes at the ghoul. "Like he said. Good to see your ears work."

She then turned to Gleam. "Well, I figured out that I can heal wounds and create fire. Not in that order, though. You should pick up your other abilities soon enough."

The alicorn just keeps looking down shyly
"huh....Maybe..."
Then raise a bit and headtilted
"I don't think I know much about Sparkle Colas.... Or remember..."

[BladeofObliviom]

[Ample Pun Fuel]

Violetta's crack actually gets a pretty good laugh out of the Ghoul.

"Hey, when you're as old as I am, I'd like to see you try to hear something!"

Despite the potential hostility of such a comment, the facetious tone completely disarms it of any real rudeness or accusation.

"Anyway, wow. I'd assumed she was chasing ghosts, but apparently there really was a treasure trove of soda around here. Huh. So, magic. Nice stuff. I wonder if I'm still any good at brewing up those potions..."

[TheAmishPirate]

[The Pun Tank is Running Low]

As the others got to talking about mystical magical hoo-ha, Fleetwing just busied himself getting his bags back in order. "Look, we can all talk about magic 'till we're blue in the face, but I'd rather we do that where there's a mite more cover. 'Sides, got to deliver these sodas sooner rather than later." If there were no objections, he'd start heading back to Girdershade.

[PurityIcekiller]

[I'm Not Sure; We're Getting Plenty Of Mileage Out Of Them]

"Potions would probably be a great help-"

Violetta was cut off by Fleetwing. "That's a good point. We'd better get these things to Fizz before she thinks we scampered on her. We can talk more later, unless you want to come along."

[Luka]

[I'm Not Sure; We're Getting Plenty Of Mileage Out Of Them]

"Potions would probably be a great help-"

Violetta was cut off by Fleetwing. "That's a good point. We'd better get these things to Fizz before she thinks we scampered on her. We can talk more later, unless you want to come along."

"I-I think we could follow... Right Swift?"
He turns towards the ghoul, then back at Violetta
"...How many of those you got?... I think they're something you drink, aren't they?"