We slept in the same hotel as last night. I would give the place a nice review if it wasn’t bombed out. The next morning Ashaa and I left Shadow to his own devices as we headed off to deliver the radio equipment to Midnight Rain.

The settlement was just as busy as it was yesterday. Ponies, gryphons, and even a few ghouls going about their business. Ashaa was enchanted by the sight of civilization and was constantly wandering off, requiring me to drag her back on course multiple times.

After about a half-hour of pulling Ashaa past every distraction possible we made it to Midnight Rain’s house. I knocked on the door and got another muffled “hold on I’ll be right there!” From the other side.

When she opened the door she glanced from me to Ashaa.

“They multiply. Huh.” Midnight Rain turned back into the house leaving the door open. Looking back to say “Well come in then, don’t you want your caps?”

I began to follow her inside, Ashaa close behind. We sat in the living room again, this time three glasses of scotch were placed on the table.

“So, um, where’s my radio equipment? Or did you come back to tell me you failed?”

“We have your parts, just a second.” I then pulled the bag of parts out of my Inventory and handed it to her. After inspecting the contents for authenticity, she tossed large bag of caps across the coffee table with her azure magic.

“There’s three thousand caps, two hundred caps per every piece of tech. Good job Blitz, I didn’t expect you to actually make it.”

“Wow, um, thanks?”

“By the way, Scruffy wanted to talk to you guys, something about a job.” Obviously she had heard of my return, but why hadn’t she offered the job when I told her about my reasons for coming to town?

I nodded and stood up, Ashaa following suit.

“By the way, where can I find Scruffy?”

“Down on Marebon Street 2, Scruffy’s mechanics and hardware. It’s got a big flashy sign, kinda hard to miss.”

“Thank you, we’ll be on our way then.”

And with that, we exited Midnight Rain’s house and headed off towards Scruffy’s workshop.

Just as Midnight Rain described, Scruffy’s mechanics and hardware had a bright neon sign containing a flaming socket wrench and a blowtorch. A note on the front door read:

In the back welding, please wait in the store.
-Scruffy

The inside was a mess. Parts of skywagons, dismantled power armour, and other various unidentifiable bits of machinery were strewn all over tables, shelves, basically anything that wasn’t a walkway. The only area cleared off appeared to be a desk of sorts next to the back door that led to the workshop itself, instead of parts it was covered in business papers and sketches of all kinds of machinery with varying degrees of complexity.

Peeking my head into the shop showed that Scruffy was indeed welding, a heavy mask upon her head and using a few tools held by her magic as she worked on what looked like the most intact skywagon I had seen so far.

The shop was the complete opposite of the store in front. Everything was neat and tidy, every type of scrap metal in its own bin, the floors clean, and every power tool kept organized on a massive board on the back wall. On the far side of Scruffy was what I thought was another one of her projects: an almost finished set of power armour, helmet modified to accommodate her horn.

As I turned to go wait in the store for Scruffy to finish up she turned around to grab a tool off the board and noticed me. She waved and flipped up her helmet.

“I’ll be right wi ye! Jus let me get my tools put up!” I gave her a wave in return and walked back into the store area to find Ashaa fiddling with a very complex looking bow. Instead of a traditional bowstring, it used a pulley system connected to the tips of the bow. When she pulled back the main string all the way back it gave a small click! and locked into place, reducing the draw weight to almost nothing.

“That’s pretty cool,” I remarked, causing her to almost drop the weapon in surprise.

“Oh, yeah, it is. Do you think it’s for sale?”

“Aye, it is for sale, though bows are no a popular item in my shop. Reason being tha archery is no a practical skill to learn in the wasteland, wi rifles being the better option.” Scruffy replied, startling both of us after silently entering the room. Chuckling softly she trotted over to her desk and flitted through the papers on top. “Since you’re here I guess Miss Rain has told ye about my job offer?”

“She told us you had a job offer, but didn’t give any details.”

“Aye, that’s because I didna give her any details. This job I have for ye is a bit dangerous. Ye saw that skywagon in my shop aye? I’m trying tae get it running again. That way I can ship supplies like water talismans and the like to nearby settlements. Most everything I need tae finish it I can find in my workshop or in town save for something tae power the whole thing.”

Scruffy paused to give me a map and a set of instructions she had pulled out of the mess of papers on her desk.

“The only place within a couple hundred kilometres of here that may have what I’m looking for is an auld robotics lab three days north oh town. I’d go myself but I have quite a lot of work to do round town and ye seem capable enough to go for me.”

“How much will we be paid?” I asked. Obviously quite a lot if she wanted us to travel that far out of town for just an energy source for her skywagon.

“Och, about five or six thousand caps, depending on the quality of the engine ye get me.” She replied with a dismissive wave of her hoof. This left both my sister and I quite speechless. Five thousand? that was half the money we needed to get home!

“Of course we’ll take the job Scruffy, you’ll get your power source in less than two weeks!” I reached out and we shook talons/hooves.

“Alright then! You two should be on your way if ye want tae make good time. I’ll be seein the two ah ye soon!”

And with that Scruffy turned and went back into the workshop, pausing only call over her shoulder.

“The bow is yours lass! I’ve nae use for it.”

Ashaa and I decided that the best course of action was to collect Shadow and head out immediately. We still had quite a bit of daylight left.

Of course, Shadow was not enthused about it.

“You went in there for three hours and you already have another venture to go on? You two need a rest, not a week long trek into the wasteland.”

“We’re on a time limit. We can rest on the ship home.” I pressed. Ashaa snorted.

“Yeah, if you’re not spending the whole trip with a puke bucket.” Shadow actually chuckled a small bit at that, his mood slightly improved.

“Fine. Let’s go then. But if one of you collapses due to exhaustion I’m not going to carry you.”

Footnote:

Quest complete! Radio Gaga. Reward: 3000 caps.

Quest progress: In a rich colt’s world: 3,075/10,000 caps. Time limit: 29 days remaining.

Author's Note

Dear God I dislike writing filler so much. But now we can move on to more interesting stuff! Yay!

Again I hope ya’ll are enjoying my story any and all feedback is appreciated! And of course a thank you to Kkat for creating FoE and a thank you to you guys for giving my little fic a chance.

-ABloodthirstyUnicorn