Chapter Three

"Eeyup."

        “So, this is it? This is where we get you ultimate power? It doesn’t seem all that impressive to me.”

        Dark Heart and Ammo Surplus were standing in front of a large building that may have once been a Royal Guard outpost or a post office, for all the markings that were left on it. The windows and doors were barred up with mottled wood, signs that someone had lived inside the building for quite some time. Whether or not they were still there, though, was a question whose answer Ammo Surplus lacked. The walk to this building had been uneventful, with no surprise attacks by bandits or even a flock of bloatsprites. The only thing less eventful than their surroundings on the way to this building was the conversation; the two only spoke when they were giving directions or warnings, and other than that they were concentrating on ignoring each others’ presence.

        “This isn't where we get the power,” Dark Heart responded as he searched for an unsealed entrance. “This is where we find out where the power actually is.” Finding what he was searching for, the unicorn motioned his companion forward, before turning and pulling himself through a small hole in the side of the building.

        Ammo walked over to the hole, trying to make out some shapes in the area beyond. It was too dark inside to see anything but silhouettes and blurred shapes, none of which were moving.

        Ammo Surplus sighed as he squeezed himself through the hole. Silently, he asked himself if following a cloaked pony with control over the dead and dying without asking what was going on was going to become a regular occurrence.

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        Dark Heart crept through the hole, letting his eyes adjust to familiar surroundings. As soon as he could see, he did a quick glance around. Everything was just as it was the last time he was here, down to the dusty coat rack in the corner. Nodding in approval, he walked out of the room, down a hallway that was just as dusty as the room he had been standing in before. As he walked, he remembered what he had found on his first visit to this old building.

(-~-~-~-)

Dark Heart pulled his way through the storm, searching for some sort of shelter. The rain was coming down so hard it seemed as though the entire cloudcover was coming down around his ears. Lightning flashed, and a building became visible in the distance. Thunder roared in his ears as he began galloping towards his new objective.

Stopping in front of the building, Dark Heart took in it's surprising level of preservedness before pulling the door open and rushing inside. He'd had enough of that rain, thank you very much.

He made his way inside, thinking only of getting out of the rain, and not of the potential dangers of his temporary residence.

Now inside, Dark Heart began to look around, trying to find something he could use as a mattress for the night. He could see that the room had only one other entrance, leading into a hallway that would bring him deeper into the building. He did a quick search of the entrance room, not expecting to find anything of particular value. He walked to the doorway, deciding to see if he could find somewhere decent to bed down for the night.

On the other side of the door, he found a hallway with four rooms leading out; the three closest to him didn't have proper doors, only empty doorframes or half-there doors leading into dark rooms. The fourth door, the one farthest from him, was the only one with a fully intact door still standing.

Dark Heart walked down the hallway, poking his head into each doorway to see if any of the rooms had anything of interest in them. Nothing in the first two rooms particularly piqued his interest. As he walked past the third door he stopped looking for loot, figuring that if he hadn't found anything yet, he wasn't going to.

He stopped in front of the last room in the hall, the only one which still had a door. Figuring a standing door meant that the room was the most well preserved in the building, he tried to open it, deciding to stay in there for the night. After several tries with his magic, and several more with his hooves, Dark Heart decided that the door was locked. Not for the first time, he berated himself for not learning how to pick locks. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, Dark Heart walked away, deciding to stay in one of the other rooms.

As he walked through the doorway to the room he chose, a loud creak echoed through the building. Somepony had opened the locked door. Dark Heart stopped moving, listening intently to the noise of the building. Faintly, he could hear breathing. Using his magic, he reached under his cloak and grabbed his .44 Magnum. Sure, he could use his magic to deal with whatever was near, but he found that killing with a gun was that much more satisfying.

Holding his weapon aloft, Dark Heart snuck towards the door, trying his best (and failing miserably) not to make a sound. He stopped just outside of the now open door, crouching against the wall, and listened for any more sounds of life in the room. He could still hear breathing, but now he could also hear a faint fluttering of wings. These wingfalls didn't sound like a pegasus, though. They sounded more insect-like, almost as though a giant dragonfly had gotten itself stuck indoors.

Steeling himself, he quickly pulled out into the doorway, looking around the room to try and find the source of the breathing and wingfalls. What he seen shocked him so badly he dropped his gun.

Laying in the center of the room was a creature straight out of a Lovecoltian novel. A cross between an insect and a pony, the prone monster had teeth that looked able to tear through pony flesh with ease, and giant, translucent wings attached to its barrel.

Barely thinking, Dark Heart unloaded all the ammo in his gun at the creature. He missed all but one shot, which grazed the creature's holed leg. Apparently magic would have been a much better option than using a gun he had little to no training with. Once bitten twice shy I guess, he thought, as he charged his horn with eldritch energies. While many unicorns used their magic in combat with deadly precision, Dark Heart had trained more in other areas; as a result he had decided that blowing holes in his enemies the size of bloatsprites would simply have to do.

Before he could release his blast of energy, however, the creature laying on the floor spoke. 'Wait!' it screamed. 'Pleasse, don't kill mmee! I can give you tressuress! Yess, Mogg knowss where the treasuress are. And if you kill him, you wiill never get the treassuress!'

(-~-~-~-)

        Dark Heart never did get that treasure, come to think. Oh well, he thought. I'll bring it up today, and that damn changeling'll just deny it ever happened, and give me some half-true information instead. Just as well, though. He wasn't here for treasure today; he was here for information. Fully true information, if he could get it. If not, well, he'd just have to make due.

        Standing in front of a very familiar door, Dark Heart stopped for a moment and listened. He could hear the familiar sound of breathing and wingbeats coming from the other side of the door, and he didn't have to listen very hard to hear his new companion bumbling about somewhere in the building behind him.

        Sighing at the uselessness of today's minions, he opened the door in front of him, disappearing into the darkness of the room beyond.

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        Ammo Surplus pulled himself the rest of the way through the hole, standing up to his full height. He cast a quick glance around, trying to locate the unicorn who had been in front of him moments before and to take in his surroundings.

        The inside of the building looked much the same as the outside. And by that the inside of the building was old and broken down. Broken furniture was scattered about, with a thin layer of dust coating everything. In a corner of the room was a coat stand with an ancient jacket hanging, waiting for a pony who would never come to retrieve it.

        Looking to the floor, Ammo Surplus followed the unicorn's hoofsteps out of the room and down a hallway. It seemed to him that Dark Heart had either been here before, or knew exactly where what he was looking for could be found. Ammo didn't know if he should have been apprehensive about this information, or if he should have expected as much.

        The hoofsteps led Ammo Surplus to a door, behind which he could hear muffled talking between two ponies. Not thinking twice, he pulled the door open and walked in, surprising the pony and thing talking in the room.

        Wait.

Thing?

        Ammo Surplus gaped at the horrific monster in front of him. Standing about as tall as an average pony, it looked like a giant insect had tried to turn into a pony, but had forgotten about its chitin and wings. It's legs were filled with holes that leaked a green ooze, and it's mane and tail looked like hanging moss. The most horrific thing about it, however, were it's eyes. They looked like an insect's eyes, single-coloured and divided into hexagons to allow for more viewing area. But they looked hungry. The type of hunger that came only with not eating for weeks. And they were staring back at him.

        “Well!” Dark Heart shouted, pulling all eyes in the room to him. “Ammo Surplus, this is Mogg. Mogg, Ammo Surplus. I'm glad you two have had the chance to meet each other. Ammo, Mogg here is going to tell me where to find what I'm looking for.” the unicorn was trying his hardest to keep his stallion partner from screaming Bloody Mare and unloading his weapons into the changeling. So far, it seemed as though he was doing a bang-up job.

        “Yess,” Mogg rasped, “I wiill tell you where to find an object of power. But firsst, you musst do ssomething for Mogg.” the changeling made his way to a door at the back of the room, making sure to keep an eye on the gunslinging zompony. “As you know, Dark Heart, I amm allone. My hive abandoned Mogg here yearss ago, ssure that he would die of sstarvation.” the creature released what may have been a laugh, though to the two ponies present it sounded more like a creature wheezing it's last breath. “Clearly, they did not anticipate a crazy pony in a sstorm. Now, while normally you would feeed Mogg for information, he feelss as though a tidbit like thiss iz worth a tad more than just enough love to keep me going until your next vissit.” Opening the door, Mogg used his magic to grab something from the room behind him, keeping it hidden behind his body. He turned back to Dark Heart and Ammo Surplus, still hiding his new object. “You musst promisse me now,” he whispered, as if afraid that someone would overhear, “that thiss object never be used.” he hissed his commands as he revealed his hidden object: a small, black orb.

        Dark Heart sucked in a breath and Ammo Surplus simply stared at it, confused. He turned to Dark Heart, hoping that the unicorn could cast some sort of light on the situation. The unicorn, realizing his confusion, whispered “That's a mana battery! Unicorns in pre-war Equestria would pump them full of power over long periods of time, sometimes years, so they could cast huge spells. From the looks of that one, it has some crazy power in it!” Turning back to look at the creature holding the orb, who was currently staring at a sliver of light on the floor as though it might kill him in a horrifically violent way, the unicorn added, “Then again, it could just have been some old crone's source so she could heat her tea. With that changeling, I find it's best to go in expecting everything and hoping for nothing.” Ammo nodded his head in understanding, wondering how often his new 'friend' had dealt with the creature before him to have made up this assumption, and how many other otherworldly monsters he knew on a first name basis.

        Stepping forward, Dark Heart went to grab the mana battery from Mogg, only to have the changeling shriek and hide it behind himself. “Nno! Pony magic activatess the sstone!” Turning to Ammo Surplus, Mogg held the black orb out. “You musst take iit, sso that that iidiot,” he gestured towards Dark Heart, who managed to keep his facial expression to a small hurt. “Doess not 'accidentally' usse iit.” Seeing no alternative, and sharing some of the same feelings regarding the necromancer as the changeling, Ammo Surplus stepped forward to grab the mana battery, trying to reach the orb and stay away from the changeling at the same time. After inching forward for several moments, the changeling decided that he was close enough to grab it, and dropped it into his outstretched hoof. After sticking the battery into one of his saddlebags, the stallion made a hasty retreat to Dark Heart, who simply stood there with the hurt look on his face.

        Not able to resist, Ammo Surplus said, “You know, if you keep doing that, your face'll stick that way.”

        That snapped him out of it. Changing his expression of hurt to one of distaste, Dark Heart turnt to Mogg and asked, “Well, alright. We'll take it off your hands and keep it safe, I guess. So where do we go? And what do we look for?” the unicorn stared at the changeling, impatiently waiting for his response.

        Mogg, to his credit, was content to make him wait. He spent another few minutes staring cautiously at the beam of light, then shook his head as if leaving a trance. Looking up to Dark Heart, surprised that he was still standing there, Mogg said, “The poniess need to go to the Oassiss, and look there. As to what it iss... that iss for you to fiind out.” he turned from the two ponies then, retreating into the dark room behind him. “Hurry, liittle poniess. You have a long journey ahead of you, and from the ssoundss of iit, not very much tiime to get iit done.”

        “The Oasis? That's on the other side of Equestria! Come, Ammo, we don't have much time!” Dark Heart rushed out of the room, leaving Ammo Surplus to follow behind him, shaking his head at his comrade's dramatic ways. He was right, though; the Oasis was on the other side of the Equestrian Wasteland, and would take quite some time to reach.

        Dark Heart and Ammo Surplus left the building through the hole from whence they came, leaving Mogg to his own business, and set off back towards Dark Heart's home. If the journey was going to be as long as the two thought, then they would need to properly equip themselves for the journey, which would mean a wagonfull of supplies. From the way things were going, Ammo Surplus was sure he could tell which one of the two of them would be pulling it.

=#-#=

        Dark Heart walked several feet ahead of Ammo Surplus, trying to digest this new information. Alright, he thought. So, first: our mission is taking us to the Oasis. Alright. I can deal with this. Second: Ammo Surplus has apparently never seen anything other than ponies and a few radiated creatures. A minor setback, but one I can deal with. Third: Mogg gave us a mana battery. A powerfulmana battery. And I'm not allowed to touch it. I'm not too okay with this, but I can't get it from Ammo yet. After making his mental list, Dark Heart felt much better about all these new facts. Slowing down a bit, he matched his pace to his partner's.

        “So,” he said. “Have you ever been to the Oasis?” He stared at Ammo Surplus, trying to read his expression.

        “Nope,” Ammo replied. “I never really went too far from my settlement until the day I died.” The level of nonchalance in his voice shocked Dark Heart; normally when he talked to the dead, they were much more sensitive about their deaths. He was speechless.

        Any further attempts at conversation Dark Heart tried to make were quickly shot down by the earth pony, until he eventually gave up on the project altogether. Silence sat between them like a wall until they reached his home once again.

=#-#=

        “Alrighty!” Ammo Surplus said loudly, as the two of them walked up the path to Dark Heart's home. “Now that we have a proper destination, we need to start getting ready! Do you have a wagon or something we can carry our stuff in?” From the unicorn's blank stare, it was clear he didn't. “Okay. That's not too much of a setback. How about a food store? Weapons cache? How about a radio?” Dark Heart continued to stare at the earth pony blankly. “How the hell did you survive this long?”

        “Mostly luck,” he responded. After a moment of silence he added, “And zombies. Zombies are great.” Ammo Surplus facehoofed. Of course, his necromancer partner could summon dead things. Why hadn't he thought of that before he started making plans and trying to figure out who would need to pull what?

        “Okay, I hadn't thought of that. Could you summon something to help pull around a wagon? I think I might be able to find a useable one down along one of the roads that we can use.” With a nod, the unicorn rushed into the house, mumbling something about 'Apples' and 'Salt'. Deciding not to question him, Ammo Surplus walked down towards the town, hoping to find something to hold all the supplies they would need.

        As he walked, he thought about what had happened in the last two days. It had started out normally enough; he was chasing a raider out of his town for some crime or other, he couldn't remember now. For some reason, it seemed insignificant now. A gunfight had broken out, and it hadn't gone like they normally do. He'd died. That was a pretty big thing on his list of things he didn't want to do again any time soon. And then, well, he'd been brought back. Which, again, was a pretty big thing. Sure, sometimes ponies were given a second chance, but this... this seemed a little bit much to come back from. Ponies didn't come back from getting shot like he did. It just didn't happen.

        While he was thinking and walking, he was checking the wrecks of wagons and carriages around them, seeing if any of them could be repaired enough to carry their supplies. While he wasn't exactly a master of mechanics, he did have a fair level of skill in fixing things, learnt from various books and his own experiences with guns and busted up robots. He'd picked one he'd wanted to use, a dark grey wagon with a roof, and had made a list of things he'd need to find to make it useable again. So far he'd managed to collect a new axle for the back wheels and a new tire. He picked up his searching speed; if he was going to have it finished, he was going to need to go a lot faster.

=#-#=

        Dark Heart was in his basement, a room as dark and dank as would be expected of a pony who dealt in the magic of death and decay. He was rummaging through shelves full of various pots and jars at a pace that managed to be both frantic and lethargic all at once. He knew exactly what he wanted; it was just that finding it was becoming a bigger mission than stopping Evil Intentions. He knew he should have kept everything in order, something his mentor had done. The problem was, he was something his master was not: lazy.

        Finding what he container was searching for, Dark Heart turned around to the large clearing on the floor behind him. He focused his magic, using it to reach into the jar and grab some of the powder that was inside. He moved it around the room, drawing a circle. He then drew a circle a quarter of the first's diameter, and filled the space between them with symbols in both old Equestrian and Zebrican. The necromancer glanced over his work critically. A single mistake in the symbols would mean anything between complete failure and the accidental summoning of demons. Not that it had ever happened to him; as lazy as he was, even he knew better than to be lazy and screw up on something as important as a magic circle.

        After deeming the circle useble, he turned back to his shelves, searching for an old box full of old objects he thought he'd placed in it's place. He knew, though, that it wouldn't be there. He was seldom that lucky when it came to things like this. And he was right; the box was nowhere in sight.

        After spending another five minutes looking for the box, he finally found it sitting with a pile of rusty tin cans. Dark Heart didn't even know why that was there, vowing to remove it at the first chance he got. Tin cans were stupid, and they did not belong in his workspace. He stuck his head in the box, rummaging around for a specific trinket. After shuffling around for a while, he found it: a small miniature of an orange earth pony mare with apples for a cutie mark. On it's base, it said “Be Strong!”

        He placed it in the center of the circle, and backed out of the farthest ring on the floor. He began concentrating on a spell that was a cross between a scrying and summoning spell. First, he began to focus on the connections to the toy in front of him, slowly allowing the stringlike bonds souls had made to it come into his vision. Each bond was a different colour, and had varying levels of brightness directly correlating to the soul's connection. There were four bonds connected to the miniature mare in the circle; a creamy white, an orange the same colour as the mare, and a rusty red. He focused his magic, pulling at the red string, willing the soul it belonged to to enter his circle.

        He didn't need to pull hard before he felt the soul begin to rise; earth ponies were deeply connected to the world, even centuries after they had died. Dark Heart continued to pull, helping the soul to pull its way to the physical plane. Soon, he could see a large transparent pony standing in front of him. He smiled, and turned behind him to grab another object off the shelf. He made quick work of the search, grabbing a small metal object in his magical grasp.

        He turned back to his circle and threw the metal trinket into the circle, where it exploded into black eldritch fire. He quickly backed up and shielded his eyes from the flash that was simultaneously sun-bright and midnight-black.

        Pulling his hoof down from his face, he set his eyes on the successful result of his summoning: a large red earth pony with a straw-blonde mane and tail stood before him, gazing around the basement silently.

        “So, MacIntosh,” the unicorn said. “The afterlife been treating you well?”

        “Eeyup.” was all the earth pony said; in truth, Dark Heart had never been able to get him to say more than four words in succession in all the times he had brought him back from the dead. It made for very boring conversation, to say the least.

        “Alrighty then! Well, sorry to call you back on such short notice,” Big MacIntosh simply stared at him. “But I need your help again. I promise, this time I don't need your soldier skills. I just need you to pull a wagon for me.”

        After staying silent for a few moments, the large pony simply nodded his head and began walking to the stairs, only to walk into an invisible force, stopping him in his tracks. Giggling guiltily, Dark Heart scuffed his hoof through the magic circle, breaking it and allowing Big MacIntosh to leave it. “Sorry,” he said as he followed him up the stairs. The earth pony turned and stared at him intently, making the unicorn look away in shame.

        “Oh, you're gonna love Ammo Surplus!” Dark Heart exclaimed. “You and him have so much in common! For one, both of you can't seem to get enough of me...”

=#-#=

        After what felt like hours, Ammo Surplus had finally done it. He ran a hoof across his forehead, letting out a breath of air. In front of him sat a fully repaired wagon. Around him were the dozen or so wagons and carriages he had taken parts from to make it work. It had taken some time, but he was more than a little proud of his hoofwork. The wagon had enchanted gemstones taken from carrier wagons, allowing it to hold more weight and feel like much less was there.

        Hooking himself into the vehicle's harness, he began to walk quickly it back to Dark Heart's shack. Even though they now had a wagon, it didn't mean they could go slow. The harness was a little big on him; he hoped that whichever poor pony the necromancer had brought back was bigger than him, even if just slightly.

        After a half an hour of walking, Ammo surplus was back at the shack. As he unharnessed himself, Dark Heart exited the building, talking over his shoulder.

        “And for another thing,” the unicorn was saying, “You're both earth ponies! So you'll have earth pony things to talk about, I guess. That's something you guys do, right? Talk about earth and... oh! Ammo Surplus, there you are! I was beginning to worry that you'd been eaten by radhogs. This is Big MacIntosh, he'll be pulling our wagon. While you were gone, I took the liberty of packing our supplies for the trip.”

        After Ammo Surplus got over how monumentally large the stallion was (thank the Goddesses the harness was large!), Ammo Surplus stared behind the unicorn through the doorway where, sure enough, a large pile of foods and weapons was gathered. “You gathered this? All by yourself?” Ammo Surplus couldn't believe it; there was no way a pony who could barely survive on his own had done this.

        “Actually... Mac here helped me.” Dark Heart looked at the ground embarrassedly, while Big MacIntosh seemed particularly pleased with himself, pushing his chest out slightly with pride. Ammo Surplus stared at him for a moment, trying to find out where he'd seen a pose like that before. Something about the stallion was familiar, but he couldn't quite put his hoof on it. Shrugging, he began to grab various supplies for the wagon, while Dark Heart got Big MacIntosh harnessed.

        “Oh, Mac, you're not gonna guess what happened! Remember Mogg? What am I saying, of course you do! You tried killing him once,” the unicorn chuckled as he talked, lowering the harness onto the earth pony's back with magic.

        Ammo Surplus tuned him out as he put the food into the cart, sighing. If he's this loud for the whole damn trip, he thought, I might just have MacIntosh put me out of my misery.

=#-#=

        Inside Mogg's refuge, the years of caked dust was being unsettled by a flurry of activity. The changeling was a blur of movement, running from room to room grabbing various odds and ends and stuffing them into a sack. He suddenly stopped, listening intently for something. When he didn't hear it, he would continue moving at his high speed, shoving things into his bag and taking other things out.

        As he flew by the last whole door it exploded off it's hinges, sending him flying and showering him with splinters. Standing in the doorway were four gryphons. They all wore green combat armour, but there was a difference among them: where a black club, the rest had other suites in a deck of cards: a diamond, a spade, a heart.

        “Changeling,” the heart gryphon, a black female, said, “We've been hired to retrieve a mana battery from this location. Presumably, our client knew you were here. So, where is it?” She stared expectantly at Mogg, who had a suitably terrified expression on his face.

        “Uh.. ah... giive Mogg a moment.” Mogg ran into the room behind him, looking for some means of escape. He found it in a small window, boarded up ages ago. He ran to it and began pulling the boards off, trying to be both as fast and quiet as he could. He was stopped short by a chest full of shotgun pellets.

        The club gryphon walked into the room, holstering his combat shotgun. He stooped down and picked up the wounded changeling, bringing him back into the hall and other gryphons. “Oh, changeling, you wound me,” the heart gryphon said, talking to Mogg once again. “Did you think I'd let you get away, and miss out on this pay? The down payment was enough to live off of comfortably until I die, but the full sum... well, needless to say, you will tell me where the mana battery is.” As she said this, she pulled out a wicked looking knife. “And if I have to get it's whereabouts the hard way... so be it.”

Footnote: New Party Member Added: Big MacIntosh!

As long as this character remains in your party, the weight of all food items and items under 5 lbs is negated. As long as this character remains in your party, your movement is slowed by 0.05%. As long as this character is in your party, all apple-related foodstuffs and weapons gain 20% stat bonuses.

Footnote: Level Up (Dark Heart)!

Perk Added (Dark Heart): the Power of (one-sided) Friendship.

So long as a companion is affected by this perk, their armour and weapon proficiency is increased by 20% when you drop to half health or less. So long as a companion is affected by this perk, you take a 10% penalty to all Charisma actions made against that character. For every level taken in this perk you may have one more companion affected by the Power of Friendship.

Footnote: Quest Updated!

Your search for power has lead you to begin a journey to the Oasis! It is up to you and your team to make it to the Oasis before other forces can impede your quest.