Author's Note

same as the last chapter no editor but in other news the royals are almost done and that's great because I hate writing them

Log17: New equpiment

Laughter his first response was laughter looking to my friends this was not the what had been expected by anyone, I thought he was going to start to yell or order us thrown out but no he sat there laughing as if it was all some kind of funny joke to him Sunny was left speechless, Stitch was more interested in the large number of armed (even if they were only holding those weird spears) guards and Nightlight was more than a little worried about the whole thing but what got me on edge was his calmness this all seemed to be a joke to him it didn’t take long for him to calm down inhale and compose himself to talk “Do you really think we tried to ‘fuck you over’ and take out the missile monster as well?” Sunny gave no answer more than a good nod “the reason you have not been paid is the job has not been completed” I really didn’t like where this was going. “The fact remains that while two of the raider gangs have been removed two still remain active” a quick hoof was pointed at Nightlight “That very mare was seen several times by our scouts out of one of the plaza’s and the group from the StarBucks plaza west of us fled off” by now I had put myself between Nightlight and King Leonheart all I got as a response was a raised eyebrow and a wave of a hoof Sunny was quick to come to her defence
“Hey now I’ll have you know that Nightlight has an important role in our group she…. um” Sunny paused tapping her horn with her hoof “she dose the thing with the other thing and?” turning to face Nightlight Sunny let out a question I don’t think anypony actually knew “What do you do exactly anyway” Nightlights response was to move closer to me and try to hide
“I make things, that’s about it” her voice was low and scared nothing like the mare I was talking to this morning or thought the day it felt wrong somehow but I wasn’t about to ask her why here, for her part Sunny remained strong in her belief that attacking us here would be dangerous given that Boom and Torchlight where at hoof just beyond the walls while the king continued to debate that fact that we didn’t complete the job as requested before too long Sunny finally broke down
“You know what fine how about you tell me where the last group went and we can finish off this contract for you then all parties can he happy go lucky go whammy” Sunny then stuck her nose as high up as she could before turning around and walking out not knowing what to do (and not really waning to stay here) I followed her with both Stitch and Nightlight behind me. In the hallway Sunny sighed staring outward into oblivion, I had the feeling this was going to be quite difficult to track down the last group of raiders that the Trottinghame rangers missed wherever they had decided to hide but right now I felt like doing some shopping considering it could be our last night here it made sense to stock up on as much as I could.

“What do you mean only 200 caps for all this?” I stood there just staring at the pawn shop owner I had piled up all the unneeded surplus equipment we had gathered with the trip to the hospital and the road here which ended up being more a pile of assorted junk then an actual worth wile pile of items but all the same I had to carry it around it should be worth more than 200 caps, the owner just shrugged at me and waved a hoof
“Look that’s what its worth at a glance so unless you want to show me each item separately so I can value the item my offer is set at a round and honest 200 caps” I hung my head with my wing I pulled the first item out of the pile it was some kind of strange pipe, my PipBuck called it a ‘steam gauges assembly’ the pawn shop owners eyes widened “look pal I was joking I don’t want to value each item by single value so how about I add an extra 50 caps and we don’t do this” I looked at him darkly.
“100 caps”
“75 caps and we leave here both happy!” I smiled and nodded it was better offer then what we started at and now I had some spending money for my trouble, the owner lent down to what I imagined was his safe dropping four bags onto the table two marked ‘100C’ another ‘25C’ and the final ‘50C’ I moved quickly to collect the bags in my wings before placing them into my saddle bag, the next stop was armour despite having some armour it was just my enforced stable branding and the leather jacket was more for show really the shop manikins where dressed up in different armour types, there was the armour the guards wore on display in two colours the gold with the other being a dark purple possibly, along the side wall was suits of simple armour I remember seeing in history books and on some of the guards around the Grand city of Trottinghame so I guessed it was some kind of combat armour. Walking up to the shop keeper she took one look at my branding and smiled widely
“So what’s barding type?” I looked blankly at her what the hell is a ‘barding’ the mare looked at me “so I guess you don’t know yourself considering what you are wearing please come this way” she indicated to a screen off to the side, trotting over the mare pulled out a tape measure, after getting my measurements she brought over several different suits of armour “so as far as I can see you are a light barding so this is some of my best light barding” what she placed before was impressive four suits of armour one was leather, two where what looked like stable branding and the last two seemed to be different the mare saw the look in my eyes and pointed to the two suits “these two are special their design came from before the war, the ministry of image had suits made for Pegasus soldiers that would be light weight enough to allow flight but protect very well” her eyes went to my wings “and somepony here could use some protection around his wings” I backed up a bit this felt weird I’ve spent most of my life not caring about my wings and overall ignoring them but since Torchlight started getting me using them it would make sense to protect them.
Then another big thing hit me very quickly and my head went down this armour was made for a pegasi especially so this was going to cost me a heap of caps and I still needed to look at getting some other things “So how much is this barding going to cost me?” I had to grit my teeth the mare looked at something on the armour and then behind her at a safe on the wall then back to me
“129 caps that seems to be fair because I know that I won’t be able to sell this just to anypony” she pushed the armour closer and indicated to the room at the back “if you want to try it on just to make sure you want it” I took the armour in my wings and walked to the room shutting the curtain I slipped out of both my jacket and my stable branding (or would that be barding too?) looking at it I could see there was a hat as well which I found kind of nice, slipping into the greyish white barding it took me a minute to get my wings into the sleeves and gave them both a flap before trying to fit my tail in the small opening at the back, it felt light and not that tight over all the body piece was a great fit for me and the line of buttons down the neck line was a great extra, next was the boots all four where a light black and slipped over the barding leg sleeves nicely a quick clop of each hoof was a refreshing sound and felt better than not wearing any, the belt was a trouble to get on but I managed to in the end there was some space on each side with small boxes and odd flaps, finally was the hat looking at the image on it was something a picture of a pair of wings and a cloud I neatly placed it on my head and pulled open the curtain and trotted out the mare gave a gasped indicating that she wanted me to turn around I gave a quick turn and stuck out my wings she clapped her hooves smiling madly
“Oh you have no idea how long I’ve waited to see somepony in that barding it fits you so well you look the part of a solider” I smiled back it was nice and compared to my branding (barding) it felt more official I reached back and pulled one of the ‘100C’ bags and the ‘25C’ bag placing them on the table then reached back to pull the last of the caps from the ‘50C’ bag before I was stopped “whoa don’t worry about the last of the caps 125 is close enough plus I got to see it in its finally being worn it’s all good” and with that she took the caps and placed them into a small box beside her “please come again”.
Outside I could see Nightlight talking to somepony over at another shop I headed over the pony she was talking to was discussing the strange tools on the table walking in the conversation halted with both ponies looking over at me it took Nightlight a few seconds to realise it was me but when she did I could feel her eyes looking over my digging into the barding, then she looked up and smiled then ponced onto me. It caught me off guard and I stumbled onto my back while she pinned me down taking my new hat placing it on her own head I gave her a glare but she responded by pouting at me so I conceded I may as well now I lost my new hat then one kiss later she was up and back to talking with the pony about the strange tools she had ordered the other items in the shop seemed very odd mixtures of bits and pieces, scrap metal and electronics on shelves a few lines of boxes containing wrenches and hammers, what caught my eye most was a small set of gems in the back behind a pair of broken down robots (at least I think they are robots) picking one up with my wing I separated it and reached back into my saddle bag and fished out the strange rod I had been carrying to take a closer look and it did indeed have a space right above the mouth guard where a cracked gem lay I quickly put the rod away and scooped up the gem and took it to the counter the owner took the gem and held it to the light “well darn I forgot I had these I shove so much stuff on these shelves now a days I forget about half the stuff in this old shop now the gems eight caps” I gave a nod and placed the caps onto the counter the pony took them and pointed to a bench at the end of the room “if you are doing some repairs do it over there and don’t worry about cleaning up after yourself I’ll just sell what you leave” the pony then chuckled, the bench itself was nice and flat with plenty of room to work on once I shoved all the junk and scrap off it grabbing the rod back out of my bag I placed it between the two vices and put the gem next to it. Looking over the rod my first real problem was removing the old cracked gem at first I thought it would just slip out but considering its still in after goddess knows how long I figured it wasn’t just falling out reaching back into my saddle bag I searched for my knife looking inside it my bag was a complete mess caps, bullets, food, my books, my stable branding, the cooking equipment, my battle saddle, the variant rifle, the 10mm pistol, Stability and the Flare gun all thrown in there I felt like I was going to have to empty my entire bag out just to find my knife then my E.F.S popped on
[did you know your PipBuck can organise your inventory for you?!, the auto sorter has been shut off for this PipBuck turning it on will allow you to access all the stuff you may ever need or let you browse your inventory without even having to open you saddle bags!!]
The message flashed off and left my eyes watering but it sounded good I activated my PipBucks options and flicked on the auto sort system causing more messages to flash before my eyes
[Auto sort: active]
[Sorting inventory……]
My side vibrated with a bit of magic for a few minutes and it felt quite weird
[Inventory sorted]
Taking my saddle bag off I opened it up to find the entire content of the bag sorted (kind of like what it said it would do) it even moved my battle saddle and rifle to the outside and hung them off a pair of hooks on the sides, my ammo was moved to a front pocket I didn’t even know was there but what worried me was that both the 10mm and stability seemed to be missing the Fare gun was still there, looking around on the floor just in case it fell out I couldn’t see either of them bringing up my PipBuck I looked under weapons both where right there but next to each was a letter and number ‘H1’ for Stability and ‘H2’ for the 10mm wondering what it stood for I pressed on the Fare gun to move to ‘H2’ at the same time I felt another vibration of magic this time just around my new belt looking back at it I could see the Flare gun in one of what was the empty boxes with the flaps looking at the other side I could Stability in the other one opening up my PipBuck again (this is going to get old fast) I tried to find any information on what the letters meant the best I could figure out it was for ‘Holster’ in addition I found I could store a spare clip of my 10mm in the empty spaces on the belt thinking back the mare did say it was made for soldiers during the war so the fact it has spaces for weapons was actually not that strange. It also occurred to me that I still hadn’t found that knife flicking thought the weapons section I could see all of my weapons with the exception of the rod which made sense since it was on the bench but as far as my PipBuck was concerned I had no knife with a sigh I gave up grabbed my rod and the gem and threw them into my saddle bag as it vibrated with magic of the auto sort, giving Nightlight I quick nudge to tell her I was going she said she would catch up later the last stop on my list was weapons while I had a good selection my ammo was the real problem while my 10mm and rifle used ammo I understood Stability only had what was left in the clip and I had no clue where I could find ammo for the Flare gun walking over to the weapons store two guards watched me enter which felt slightly creepy inside a stallion was tending to a extremely large gun looking up at me he smiled and looked back down at the gun
“What I got here is none other than a Vindicator the best of any minigun this baby can fire 90,000 rounds with its six polymer barrels a minute without overheating and I’m going to mount this baby on one of those rail runners trains and retire one rich buck” he gave the gun a final pat before and moving over to a counter “so what can I get you today?” I gave the stallion a quick summary of my weapons and the ammo I needed with a few nods he brought over the ammo “so that it just some ammo? Well that’s 100 caps” I put the last ‘100C’ bag onto the counter and it quickly went into a safe turning back he looked kind of disappointed at the lack of an actual gun purchase
“Well by any chance do you have any weapons that don’t hurt my jaw?” He stopped for a minute and looked over at a far wall
“So you have sensitive jaw do you no real problem as long as you use a battle saddle so how about one of those babies” he pointed at a gun right behind me I turned to look at it “What you got there is a Sunstriker rifle most ponies just call them laser rifles it’s the old 2000 model so it lacks the strength of the better Novasurge rifle but I’ve always found the Sunstriker to have an advantage of not having to have the magical cartages exposed” he then produced a strange box from bellow his counter “but if you just want to avoid the buck of a pistol I recommend the magical energy pistol version mind you the Sunstriker pistol is less effective than its rifle brother” they sounded really good both guns would really help out in battle and without the buck from the gun throwing me off I may actually be useful
“Right so how much are they each”
The buck looked at me then at the guns “the rifle is 1270 caps and the pistol comes in at 569 caps” to say my jaw dropped was an understatement I facehoofed hard I didn’t have that kind of money and on top of that I needed to earn money for the stables weapons the buck just watched me “figured you might not be able to pay for something like that but don’t forget these guns where old relics before the war the one you want is the Novasurge rifle trust me the Sunstriker is a good goal for yourself but maybe not your primary” I gave him a nod and started to leave “hey next time you are in here I might have a Novasurge for sale stop by some other time” I looked back over my shoulder and gave him a smile
“Thanks I’ll do that um what was your name?”
“My name is GunRunner it’s what I do and it’s what I call myself".