Chapter 15 - Sunset

The sun dipped below the horizon, and darkness blanketed over Bold Harbor as the shadows fused together into one mass of darkness. Optical had informed us that there was going to be no moon tonight. Only the stars were out, which didn’t provide enough light to see. A few spark battery powered lights dotted the ship, but they were too few to be of any real use.

Optical sat on a rickety chair as she looked over some papers in the dim flickering of a lightbulb barely hanging onto life. “You sure this is a good idea, miss Mhambi? I barely trust those Reka ponies to not shoot themselves.”

“Know thy enemy.” Mhambi informed. “Razor Storm is going to be our biggest problem no matter what, so we need to be able to counter the Skull Hunters so that we can focus on killing that monstrous alicorn.” She looked over at us. “No offence.”

“Non taken.” we answered. “We don’t know why she is dose this; she must have strayed. Something must have happened to our supervisor in this area. They are who kept us on the right path, those of the same mind as mother.”

“Like an extension of the hive mind, or whatever you had?” Mhambi asked.

We shook our head “No, we were in Unity, always connected to mother, but our connection was weak this far out. They were part of unity, independent yet fiercely loyal. They were trusted to keep us from straying. Most were blue, like us… me. We remember one that was assigned to us as being, well, enthralling, and more beautiful than the most of us. She called herself an ‘actress’, and was one of mother’s favorites. We don’t miss the oversight, but we know that she and the others would not have approved of what Razor Storm is doing now.”

“So the Alicorns are in the same spot as the Enclave.” Optical added. “The chain of command breaks down, and the corrupt assholes see it as their opportunity to take charge.” She passed the peace of paper over to Mhambi. “Speaking of Air Burst, his plan to mine the town below may be solid, but I have a feeling that he was forgetting that this is their town. They may work around them, but still I sent a few of my ponies to drop the mines because we need every advantage we can get. It should at kill a few at the start, and slow the rest of them down.”

Mhambi sighed. “I fear that you’re right, about this being their town. They must have a few hidden entrances, and have just been biding their time, waiting for the local population to starve a little.” She gave back the paperwork to Optical. “This Grease Fire is, if anything, a shrewd tactician. Even with Winterberry’s stockpile added to what you have, it’s only another day’s rations at best. She didn’t even know that half of the food had been tampered with, and already started to rot.”

“If we weren’t relying on that food, I’d be more impressed.” Optical passed over a piece of paper to us, it showing the insignia of the Skull Hunters. “If this problem is not dealt with soon, once the sick recover, were all just leaving this place. Make a stop at the stable that freak is from.”

Mhambi rolled her eyes. “His name is Micro Fusion, and don’t go planning on running away just yet.” A light suddenly came up from below deck, brightening up the doorway to below. “That should be them now.”

In a short few seconds, Tetanus and Rust Bucket came into view, using their horns to light their way. They both had saddle bags on that held two wooden boxes on either side.

“You do know the dark time is for sleeping, right?” Tetanus spat out. “Now you got the idiot thinking he’s popular enough to be invited to an orgy.” She caught our less than amused glance and grumbled. “Right I get it, not the time for jokes or sex. So what mischief are you three up too? Not like this is the time for a tea party after all.”

“Seriously?” Optical gave Mhambi a less than happy look. She looked back at the two raiders. “So what’s in the box? Explosives I’d hope.”

Rust bucket laughed through his teeth, and Tetanus pulled out one of the boxes, and opened it. Inside were rows of candles. “I wish, but no. What we got here are some high quality candles, for all you not spell casting suckers.” The candles gave a less than pleasant odor, and we could see that the wick had a loop on the top. “These are miner’s candles, from an old empty coal mining site turned tourist trap. The place survived the war, along with a little candle making hut where our ancestors decided to move the setup to right here in bold harbor and what not.”

“Fine, fine. Enough with the history lesson, we don’t care.” Optical said as she held her nose. “Why do they stink?”

Tetanus smiled. “Oh, well after we ran out of wax, our ancestors found that fat makes a good replacement.” We could see Optical’s face almost turn another color. “Anywho, we got a very large stockpile of these candles. They’re made to burn bright, and to not go out in the wind. So they should be perfect for any pony that wants to stay up past the sunset.”

Rust bucket place an old dirty glass on a nearby table, and place a candle. Sparking a little flame with his magic, the candles with caught fire, and produced a small but strong light. “We didn’t use the candles all that much, due to every pony knowing how to do a light spell. But having a stockpile is better than not having one.” Oddly enough, the light from the candle was a bit better than the lightbulb, with it not flickering as intensely.

Mhambi looked at us all and relaxed. “Right, now that you’re here, we can get to business. We need to know how the Skull Hunters fight, what to expect.”

“Figured ya drop this shit on us.” Tetanus rolled her eyes, and sighed. “So, other than promisin’ ta not turning our skulls into a lantern, what ya got as coopin’tation, cop’ten’tashion… compensation?”

“We could give you caps.” Mhambi stated. “But I think we can do one better. If you aid us in this, we can put you in place of your own business. That is if you two know how to run one.”

The two looked at each other with eyebrows cocked. “We know how to do things, yes, but how does that beat out free caps?”

Mhambi tossed the raider a cap. “Give a pony some feed, and they eat for a day. Give them a farm, and they eat for a season. Give them a farm and teach them how to run it, they feed the town for years. Basically, if you have your own business, and can run it successfully, you’re set for life.”

Rust Bucket place another candle in a dirty glass on the table, lighting it up. “I get it. If what we give you is real useful, you let us stick around and help to keep this place running.” He levitated another candle, and poked Tetanus’s cheek with it. “Like making candles for every pony, or the smithy. Shit like that.”

Tetanus pushed the candle out of her face. “Ya, ya, that dose does sound like a sweet deal. But one problem.” She levitated a candle as well, poking Rust Bucket with it. “We are shit at work. That’s why we’re jailers, all we had to do is sit around and pretend to be capetent, cooptent,” scrunching up her muzzle, she grunted. “Competent.”

“I do remember you being an okay whore.” Rust Bucket commented.

“I remember your asshole being looser than mine” she retorted.

“Well I at least still have a gag reflex.” He countered.

Tetanus laughed “Says the stallion who got stuck on a dick piercing.”

He stuck his tongue out at her, revealing it to actually be forked. “Didn’t hear you complain about my tongue the other night.”

“That was only because I pitied you.” Tetanus growled. “Same as how I pity that you don’t even last a minute before finishing, or how you can’t even keep going after like a good lay.”

We pushed the two apart before the two could start fighting, or kissing. They looked like they were going to do both. “Now from what I know, most stallions don’t last much more than ten seconds after foreplay, and commonly have only one go in them. Unless they prefer rape, then it can go on longer and more times than you would li…” we stopped ourselves, feeling bad memory’s welling up. “Sorry.” We backed up. “Sorry.”

The two raiders now looked awkwardly shy now. “You know.” Tetanus spoke up, holding a candle in front of her. “The workshop that makes these candles also makes a bunch of other useful stuff. Simple things like paper, or belts, the kind of stuff that was always in demand. The fat bitch that ran the place acted like it was her personal kingdom, always paranoid that some pony would take it from her.” She put the candle back in the box. “Give me that place, and you have a deal.” Rust Bucket again poked her cheek with a candle, and she grumbled. “Give us that place, and we have a deal.”

Mhambi and Optical looked less than certain about what had just happened, and both of them gave us a worried glance. But the moment quickly passed, and Mhambi nodded. “Sounds fair enough. The candles alone will provide a useful commodity if we’re to keep this place.” She moves one of the candles just a little, framing her face as she looked into the two raiders eyes. “So, tell us everything you can. If you can give us the edge we need to win, you will have a little kingdom of your own here soon enough.”

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The information Tetanus and Rust Bucket gave us was enough to change the plans that Optical had made, and revealed were the skull hunters could have snuck in from. As it turned out, an old sewer pipe ran under most of Bold Harbor, allowing them to sneak in from outside the walls. So we quickly put a lid on that problem, and then heaping pile of junk on that lid. Also, the two informed us about the base the other Skull Hunters were staying at. It had been the first hunting base for them when they arrived, and was still where they keep a lot of their tools locked up. It also happened to be where they stored most of their TNT, meaning that we are to expect an explosive entrance when the raiders attack.

They shared other information with us, both useful and… not. Tactics, hunting parties, how many of them probably have an STD. If Mhambi didn’t stop them, we were sure they would have gone into the local gossip, telling us about who was sleeping with who. Truthfully, we did feel a little disappointed that we didn’t get to hear even a little bit of the gossip. So in the end, Mhambi had them help with the militia, something about teaching the pegusi citizens about what a raider is in the first place.

“What’cha thinkin about?” Star hopped onto the dirty couch in the room. We had taken up residence in the large house up on the ship. The others kept telling us that we should rest and get our energy back, so here we sat.

“The day.” Was our simple, but adequate response.

*Pop*

Star had opened up a bottle of Sparkle-cola. “Ya know, I’d have stuck with the raiders, would not have to do all dis extra shit.”

“Language.” We said firmly.

The filly growled a little before she took a sip of the cola. Her demeanor changed from a little grumpy, to surprised and happy. “By Luna this is good!” She lifted it up at me us. “What is this?”

“It’s sparkle-cola. Have you never had any?” now that we think about it, she did spend her whole life on the ocean. “Wait, where did you get that?”

“Fought Carver for it.” We squinted our eyes at her, and she smiled. “T’s his fault. Told me If I wanted it, I’d have to fight him for it. Didn’t think it be any good, just wanted to take it from him. Pirates are so much better than raiders” She stuck her tongue out and raspberried before glugging the cola down.

“Well, next time don’t fight. Taking other ponies things is wrong.” We contemplated on taking away the cola, but felt that it might undermine our message, so our warning would have to be enough. “We will let this go, for now. But if it happens again, you will have to give it back and apologize. Even if I have to make you, understand?”

Star rolled her eyes. “Yeeessss.” She pulled out another bottle, and we grabbed it with our magic. “Hay, dat’s mine you harlot!”

“You’re going to be up all night if you drink anymore.” We placed it on a shelf, away from her flailing hooves. “You can have it in the morning.”

She huffed, but thankfully didn’t fight us on it. “Fine, I’ll just have this.” She pulled out a wine bottle from her bag. That too we took away from her. “Oh come on!”

“By the goddess we are not letting you have alcohol! You’re what, eleven years old!?” We put the bottle down next to us, not wanting to simply put it where a determined filly could get at it later.

“Baaa.” she almost spat at us. “Not like it’s nothing new for me anyhow. Got me citrus grog every day when I could get it. Any pony that didn’t would get the scurvy.”

This felt concerning to us. “So you had alcohol every day?”

“Not everyday, but when I could.” She said cheerfully. “Tasted like puke at times, but the first mate would never shut up about it. Always shouting and reminding us to drink our grog, and that any pony who came down with scurvy badly would be cured by being tossed overboard.”

“Why Tossed overboard?” We did not understand such methods for healing ponies.

“Only cure for retards is ta send em to the depths!” She didn’t miss a beat. “So gimmy!”

She reached out for the bottle, but we levitated it out of her reach. “No, we’re no longer on the Blackwater.” Unhappy with our decision, she crossed her hooves and huffed, breaking eye contact with us. This felt like it was going to be a long problem we were going to have to deal with so long as the filly was under our protection, but deal with it we will.

A chill went up out spine as we held the bottle. Somehow we could feel it’s temperature, though we were not physically touching it. “Strange?” We lowered the bottle, looking closer at it, the bottle being of normal green glass with no label on it. With our magic, we popped the cork, and a familiar putrid smell hit our nose. Grabbing a glass, we poured a very small amount into it. The contents that poured out was probably not wine, and was literally rainbow in color, glowed, and smelled like mother.

There was only one thing left to do, we drank it from the glass. “Ow!” We exclaimed as it shocked us, literally. It had sparked a small shock at our tongue that left us a bit numb. Recovering from the… shock… we rolled the liquid around on our tongue, and it tasted oddly good. It had a strong apple taste to it, but with a slight aftertaste of taint. We also felt a little better after swallowing.

“Grate, you’re going to drink my find, typical adult.” Star grumbled.

We corked the wine bottle, and placed it in our saddlebag near us. “Where did you find this?”

She rolled her eyes. “There was a stash of it on the lower deck. Ta feather brains didn’t want it, so I thought I’d take it. Only had room for one.”

“So, no pony drank any of this?” she shook her head. “That’s good, because this is both radioactive, and has taint in it.”

Stars eyes went wide for a moment before she smiled. “We could give it as a peace offering to the raiders, see what happens.”

We shook our head. “No, but if we drink this, if… I drink this, it should heal us. It could give us the energy to fight Razor Storm.”

“I like the sound of that.” Star said cheerfully. “Let’s celebrate, you can have the wine, I can have the cola.”

We levitated the bottle of sparkle-cola off the shelf, and into our saddlebag. “No, you will go to sleep, and I will go talk with the others. She groaned, but our word was final. If all went well, then she will not have to fight. We could only hope she would stay safe in the battle to come.

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Footnote:

New Item obtained: Radical Zap Apple Hard Sider – Who ever thought brewing 200-year-old Zap apples into a wine was a genius. Sadly he or she was also completely insane, and added just a pinch of taint to the mix. +1 to all special, heals limbs, +100 to radiation, ingestion may also cause mutation and or horrific death. The stuff is awesomely bad for you, unless you’re an alicorn, then have at it.