Author's Note

Game Events: September W2, 'Granston's Great Griffin Gunstapede.'

The team is hired to clandestinely deliver an apparently new and mysterious designer drug to a notable Griffon hacker and Griffon Underground member, Granston, and to covertly observe the results. The Griffon upon taking the drug appears to be possessed. He drives directly to an abandoned bank and proceeds to assault the base of an unknown syndicate within like a one man army. He ultimately succumbs to cumulative wounds after taking a single highly reinforced mana-case from the bank. The team is quickly offered 20,000 extra nu-bits in additional pay to recover and return the case to the patron. Glass Darkly looks inside and discovers two MINIMUM rating 6 linked power foci (magic amplifiers) in the form of a heavy Emerald Bracelet and an Amethyst Tiara. He is aware that these would have street value of at minimum 250,000 nubits. He successfully lobbies the group to retain the foci while returning the case as this technically satisfies the bonus objective. He forges evidence and places it inside the case to make it look like the syndicate was using the case as a decoy while having moved the foci separately. The ruse is partly successful as the patron pays the bonus, but the teams fixer (criminal job broker) suspects the ruse.

Other player characters:
Vixie - Shapeshifting Fox from Neighpon (Japan) pretending to be a pony. Sneaky Brawler
Gwynn - Griffin Rigger (Drone Operator) and technical specialist.
Silky Sheets - Mind Control specialist unicorn mage with dubious associations. Is a noble but has been sidelined by his family.
Split Klaw - Earth Pony Hobo...with a shotgun. Tough as nails.
Glass Darkly (author & POV) - Earth Pony Mage, Illusion specialist.

Mission 2: September Week 2. ‘Granston's Great Griffon Gunstapade’

'Whoosh...whoosh...’

Glass Darkly stepped through the sliding doors of the MegaStuffer Shack, noting the mare who stood under the banner welcoming patrons to their friendly neighborhood market with a smile just a touch too forced for 3 am. Her face frozen in an expression normally reserved for seeing long lost friends...the slight glassiness in her eyes confirmed what he already knew...she was mood-chipped.

"HOWDY! So happy to see you friend! Welcome to the MegaStuffer!"

Glass Darkly took a step back, worried that he was calling attention to himself behind his heavy sunglasses. His eyes, unused to the low-quality contact lenses were killing him after several days of extended use. He needed a break and eye drops, so here he was. A glance confirmed that he fit in perfectly with the clientele at this hour, heavy trench coats and sunglasses were de rigeur.

Steadying himself, Glass passed the welcoming station and dodged the service drones which were busy restocking the shelves, the odd staff member was few and far between but he didn't doubt that the glass domes in the ceiling were watching him.

A moment later and he was in the Pharmacy grabbing the much-needed eye drops. He stopped as he passed the next aisle, boxes of coat and mane colors were available for purchase. He thought about the dozen pearlescent white hairs he had found growing through his slate gray coat and started to wonder if he should get a box. One could have any of a number of colors, even the everflowing manes of the ex-Princesses could be had for enough cash provided one was okay with weaving nano-fibers into their mane. Glass noted that there was only a single box to give a pony the mane of the ex-Princess of Love, now long-ruling Prime Minister of the Quebec Crystal Ponies. Not unsurprising.

It was close, but it wasn't quite his coat color as he held up the slate gray box, and it wouldn't be that hard to explain, given his recent activities. He started to put it in his basket but then it occurred to him...Vixie...she seemed to have the nose of a fox. He put the box back on the shelf, he needed to do this right, get the color-matched exactly, with higher quality dyes that wouldn't leave him subtly perfumed like a paint shop.

It was all so fast. He wasn't hungry...for now...the slightly full of himself mid-level executive with delusions of being the next scion of the Filthy Rich clan that Glass had 'drunk' under the table in a seemingly friendly contest had seen to that, though it had been a meager meal. He thought to the illicit box of Aisa drugs he had already picked up this evening...next to the far smaller, far more valuable box in the shiny foil from the Mitsuheehawma labs. He shouldn't be buying Pysche, hell there were alot of things he knew he shouldn't be doing, least of all buying brain-bending drugs from Yakuza affiliated donkeys...BUT...

He could feel it... this wasn't edITs first rodeo. A trifle had been offered for a treasure, it wasn't fair, but the true price was likely to come soon. edIT would throw them against bigger fish to determine if the team's momentarily wavering loyalty was offset by its usefulness. He would need an edge when the moment came. He had argued for the theft of the Foci partly to answer his own questions though he could never admit that to the others. Many metaspecies had royalty but few used heraldry like that of the Princesses, and of those there was one option that worried him more than others. That he was repulsed by the tiara was both reassuring but also problematic. How in Tartarus was he supposed to figure out where the tiara had come from, to whom was it sacred? The information would not be easy to find. He had been debating a trip into the Metaplanes when everything had been put on hold. Silky Sheets offering to support Glass as the team's interrogator and secret keeper was too...delicious...to pass up.

The formulae had not come cheap, but he quickly came to appreciate Manadyne's work over the last few days. They claimed to be derived from the ancient Manaspire Academy. He doubted their provenance but not their skill. Being able to probe another pony's mind...part of him was worried about why another part of him was so intrigued by the possibilities. Glass Darkly sighed, it was necessary.

"We do what we must...," he softly reassured himself. Each time he braved Touristville to find a....donor, there was a risk. He would help ponies tap into their greatest joys and inner peace. Then he would take a small portion as his rightly earned fee. Was it so different from an acting company that charged to see their performance? Part of him wondered. Regardless he had not had the time to research the Tiara or the Emerald Bracelet, he had been busy learning spells, busy restocking drugs and other gear, busy, busy, busy.

And the money that had so recently been earned was being spent. Not frivolously, but not in the service of his true goal. He was treating the symptoms...and yet not that much closer to an utterly private appointment with a world-class doctor. He had considered getting a camera burning virus along with his other supplies. At the rate he was going to be filmed at some point. Yet even the cheapest products peddled by the Matrix Syndicates ran to several thousand nu-bits on average. The Red Vory ponies of Stalliongrad would have their due it seemed. The costs were still much more than he could afford. Glass paced up and down the aisle, passing a few dingy mirrors setup for mares to test out the latest cosmetics. He didn't need to remove his shades he knew what he would see. The specks had given way to spheres. Like bubbles of liquid amethyst, if his irises were the top of some strange lava lamp. The blots of alien color slowly rising only to disappear into Glass' normal golden pools to reemerge later. If the eyes be a window into the soul what did this mean for him?

He had no answers...he returned to shopping and picked up a few sundries before turning a corner he found himself being assaulted by two old-timey sales ponies that emerged from a fresh, new kiosk.

"YOU THERE! YES YOU! YOU CLEARLY ARE A STALLION OF GREAT DISCERNING TASTE! A STALLION WITH HIS EYES ON HIS HEALTH. ALLOW US TO INTRODUCE A WONDER OF THE AGE. FLIM AND FLAM'S CURE ALL HEALTH BOOSTING TONIC!"

Glass laughed at the Augmented Reality display's antics and for the first time in ages smiled. It had finally been released. He was happy to see one of the last jobs he had worked on finally see the light of day. He paused to admire his handiwork on Flim, his masking of the actor had been spot on that day. The reason for the delay in having the AR commercial released obvious... 'A Product of Apple-Zap Medicarro Industries.'

He had heard that the two actual sales ponies, now elderly had fought to the last to keep their images out of the hands of Apple-Zap. The Apple clan had been relentless though in the way that only Earth Ponies could truly pull off. That this product was being launched made it clear who had been the victor. The kiosk spit out a free micro sample of the tonic.

"It isn’t but apple flavored vitamin water," Glass sighed, unimpressed but the machine was so forlorn looking just waiting for him to take it...

"Fine, cheers to good work," Glass swallowed the mouthful in one gulp and flicked the thin paper cup away...and immediately his ears twitched, it was good. Like water to a man thirsty in the desert good. Glass was confused. He had been feeling run down, but figured it was the drugs, the stress, the everything...he pulled a bottle from the shelf. It was just apple-flavored vitamin water. A thought occurred to him. Quickly pulling out his bio monitor he winced as he pricked a hoof. The device beeped for a minute, Glass made sure that the antenna was still disconnected. Finally a readout came back indicating an alarming deficient of essential minerals, along with an approved treatment plan with prices.

"Where is all the calcium I'm eating going?" Glass softly asked. He knew that the soy apples were fortified as was most of the other food he ate. The Flim Flam kiosk had no answers, and the only one that Glass could come up with on short notice was to throw a case of the tonic into his cart.

Thoughts of everything else, shadowtrotting, tiaras, and spells once again took a back seat. He hurriedly threw other things into his cart. Soy-Apples, Hay Burgers, and other bric a brac. A sight by the registers though made him stop. He licked his lips as he beheld the display for the first real cider of the season, not the swill with the metallic after-taste but the real stuff, though it was still Apple Zap's off brand. He would likely never be able to afford real Sweet Apple Acres cider, he wasn't Johnny Spinrad. Still it was 50 nubits for a case... A grimace distorted his face...it was so expensive...he wanted it...his will fought his desires.

An hour later Dante settled back into his chair and resumed the droning presentation that covered the fine details of the Dream Spell. Another brand new course still sitting in its wrapping, this from Radiant Industries and their Knight Errant Security Service. An analysis of the history and security failings in Chicago. He slowly sipped a real cider and sighed a half contented sigh, a bottle of tonic waited to chase it down.

.....

There was chanting...the voices of school ponies. Dante half remembered this dream as the laughing faces of young colts and fillies surrounded him. He couldn't make out the teacher this time...lately it had been Speculum Shine....

"Blank Flank! Blank Flank! Blank Flank"

The mocking voices came. Dante went to protest and found himself as always in his younger body, the smoky mirror that had showed up so late would be missing as it had for so many years, arriving quite late. He looked, and to his surprise it was there...he went to protest to the dream colts and fillies but as he held up a hoof, he noticed something new. His leg had a white spot...and it was growing... in fact as he looked again there were white spots appearing all over his body. Patches of the glossy pearlescent white he so feared. The spots grew and merged, and as he watched the spots appeared on his flank and soon completely covered his hindquarters. He watched in horror as his cutie mark began to bubble and then run down his leg as if it was melting wax.

He screamed...

....

With a start, covered in sweat Dante woke up trembling...quickly he found things much as they had been. Angry thuds of protest echoed from several adjoining walls. Then he realized his commlink was buzzing. There was work to be done.