Sister forum[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Rayndalf Mon May 19, 2014 7:00 pm
Vinylshadow wrote:Which 'new' Blackjack are we talking about in terms of sleepage?
Although, now that BJ's once again full-on flesh and blood, this is a tad outdated...
![[GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion - Page 26 Blackjack_s_legacy_by_vinylderpy-d70vmcp](https://2img.net/h/fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/004/3/f/blackjack_s_legacy_by_vinylderpy-d70vmcp.png)
Yellow eyed Blackjack, between the first and second one, also leg-braces for Floppyjack
Rayndalf- Stallion/Mare
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Icy Shake Mon May 19, 2014 7:51 pm
I'm not sure I agree. Basically, I think that Gin Rummy's actions were heavily shaped by the context she was in, where deviation from the authority in place leading to strife could well cause the death of everyone, after their home is rendered fully inoperable. Absent that, I think she may have stood up to the overmare even more than she did, which admittedly was basically limited to refusing to follow illegal orders. But that in itself shows a certain willingness to put her neck on the line, and that she wasn't just going to stand for whatever the arbitrary powers that be said.swicked wrote:Her mother was all about following the letter of the law. Rather than not thinking about the horrible stuff in the stable like Blackjack did, she acknowledged and had made her peace with them. She supported her stable, so yeah, there's no way she would question Luna.Vergil wrote:Except she really isn't, though. While she has many of her mother's good qualities now, she isn't afraid to openly question authority. Her mother never would have questioned Luna like Bj did.
Some more on Pony Hell:
Rampage thinks of it as unending torment, but in fairness she would be inclined to think in terms of eternities.Chapter Twenty Three wrote:“Why doesn’t she just… bury herself or something?” P-21 muttered, now with a touch of shame and pity.
“Because it wouldn’t kill her. Someday… maybe in days, or years, or centuries, she’d escape. And when she did, who knows what kind of monster she’d be? The only punishment she feels is acceptable is to die,” Priest said firmly. “She has to ensure that she’ll never hurt another--”
“So she gets off easily…” P-21 muttered.
“--and be tormented eternally in Hell,” Priest finished. P-21 blinked, then glanced at me. I think he finally realized just how deeply what she’d done had hurt.
Blackjack makes a comparison suggesting fire and brimstone and malformed, monstrous guards. But then, she's been pretty heavily influenced by Psalm, and that may have included her idea of Hell.Chapter Forty Six wrote:I walked to the library door and slowly pushed it open.
And stepped into Hell.
The vast central shaft of Hightower rose ten stories above me. Midway up, like a fiery dagger plunged into the heart of the structure, the missile jutted out into the middle of the space. Blue fire flew off the tip in volcanic eruptions that sprayed the sticky blue flame in glowing arcs. The unnatural blaze continued burning, no matter what it landed on, and the middle of the shaft was awash in a ring of radioactive fire. Inside every cell, blue-glowing shapes screamed and hammered against their restraints. Sentry robots rolled around the walkways, their metal bodies bent and warped by the tremendous heat.
Doof thinks of it as being where bad ponies belong, but there isn't enough content to say much more.Chapter Forty Eight wrote:“Doof wrote letters every day he could see straight. He wanted to see this one mare. Just once. Said he’d happily be locked up the rest of his life if he could talk to her for five minutes and tell her how sorry he was,” Blossomforth said with a small frown. “Never found out who, but I guess that one of her friends told him she’d never ever ever ever ever speak to him again. Pushed him over the edge…” The ghoul shivered. “After that we weren’t locking him up to protect him, but to protect everypony else from him. Kept provoking us to put a bullet in him… send him to Hell where he belonged. Finally he got transferred out of here. Don’t know where… don’t want to know.”
- This one's fairly long:
- Chapter Forty Nine wrote:There’s something distinctly depressing about being able to compare deaths. You’d think once would be enough for anypony. The last time I’d died it was peaceful. Calm. I’d spent the time beforehand feeling full warm sunshine glowing down on me while I listened to the rush of water against the hull. When I finally went, I’d been lying in Glory’s embrace and surrounded by friends who cared for me, and the actual dying had been like drifting away up to a better place without a fear or worry in the world. My only regret had been that I would have liked to have seen the beautiful stars above me before I departed.
This time, it hadn’t been peaceful, I wasn’t drifting upwards, and I had much bigger worries than missing out on a view of the night sky. This time, I was getting ripped through some sort of murkiness like so much rainwater being sluiced through a storm drain. I’d like to think I’m one of the few ponies who knows exactly what that feels like. Enervation’s piercing scream surrounded me on all sides, and every few seconds I passed through a shimmering, more-loudly-shrieking silver ring that sucked me in and spat me out ever faster. I struggled against the current out of sheer obstinacy, but it was no use; there was no way I was going to get away from it.
And as I was yanked through that gray void, flipping and spinning about, I became aware of a great glow in the distance that I was rapidly approaching. And I wasn’t alone in my travels; even though I didn’t have eyes, ears, or even a body, I was still aware of others being swept along with me as wailing motes of light. I brushed against one and instantly had an impression of a mare, earth pony, ganger… but then she was gone before I could feel more. Then I hit another one: colt, earth pony… I was struck by the smell of brahmin, the jingle of a pack harness, and a sensation of a horrible fever and suffocation. And then he was gone too.
Truth be told, I much preferred the first version to the sequel.
The flow increased as I was carried along, and I brushed against more pony… souls? Spirits? Every contact transferred a little information about another pony. I watched others try and break away and saw one strike the edge of one of the screaming rings as it passed; the light seemed to smear out and freeze in place, trapped against the circle as I swooshed by.
The luminescence grew brighter and brighter as we were sucked through that endless hazy gray gloom punctuated by loops of screaming silver that propelled us ever onward. For a moment I soared upward and had a glimpse of an immense disk like a circular saw blade, the motes of light being pulled through gaps in a colossal, jagged tire-like wall of silver that surrounded that glowing donut. I was sent following the rest…
And then the current weakened to a dull tug. Slowly I drifted along in a sea of motes within that immensely large wall. There were strange shadowy shapes around me, things that looked vaguely like walls and tunnels that I passed harmlessly through. From all around me came the wail and babble of untold masses crying out, some calling for Luna or Celestia to save them, others screaming in rage against their imprisonment, and others babbling in zebra. I brushed against griffins, dragons, zebras, and things I didn’t even have names for. Over it all, though, was one terrible cry… a scream of such anguish and suffering that it dug into me.
Then, green lightning flashed from that immense wall and tore through the sea of motes. Even I screamed as an agony I’d never known flashed across me. It wasn’t a physical pain so much as a sense of profound violation. It felt like being nailed back in the Seahorse again. The green lightning flashed again and again into the center of the sea, and the scream peaked once more.
“Awesome magic, huh?” a familiar stallion said from near me.
“Snips?” I asked. I felt him close, but I couldn’t tell which of the thousands of motes around me he might be. “But you’re… and I’m… shit…”
“Well, I sure am. No doubt about it,” Snips replied, “but I suspect that you still have a ways to go before you’re dead dead.”
Huh? What was I, then? Semi-deceased? Only mostly dead? I was pretty sure this was the point where you turned me upside down and looked for loose bottle caps. “But what… Snips, what is this place?” I asked as I looked around the sea of floating lights.
“The eye of the storm. The tar pit. The ocean to which eternal rivers flow,” Snips said with an odd hint of merriment. “All poetic names by different ponies. To be honest, we really don’t know. It’s always been here in Hoofington; maybe it’s the product of ancient zebra curses that were beyond even the black book. The writing in the text was particularly fearful of it. I think there’s a much more fitting word for it: Hell.”
Last point, I finally understood what Stygius is: he's the Flash Sentry/Brad of Project Horizons. Only I like him, and not Brad.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Dutcher Mon May 19, 2014 7:52 pm
Wonder how will Glory react after she finds out that Blackjack is not really Blackjack, and if they had an intimate moment.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Icy Shake Mon May 19, 2014 7:57 pm
Had to split it up due to maximum post length. Didn't know that was a thing here.
@Dutcher below: No problem. It's not like you could have known, and the connection between the two was tenuous at best anyway. I wasn't exactly in the middle of a thought.
- Chapter Forty Six Running Thoughts:
- “This is why I fucking hate tourists,” she repeated as she circled the body. Then she looked at me and my clothes closely. “You say you just came on the body like this?”
“Yeah. And like I said, I was just down in the Mortuary,” I said in a rush. “I swear, I didn’t do it!” Now I was going to have to prove my innocence! Maybe bust out of jail! Could I handle a jailbreak? Oh sweet Celestia, please don’t tell me I’d have to kill ghouls to get out of here. I liked ghouls!
Hi, Littlepip in Tenpony reference!
She sighed and moved closer to the body. “Sorry, ‘Lip.” And then she started pressing on the corpse’s ribs. There was a dry, crunchy noise as Tulip’s side depressed. “Busted ribs.” Willow carefully removed the saturated clothing to reveal two dark, round distortions. “Hoofkicks. Somepony knocked Tulip right off her hooves.”
“Like an applebuck,” I remarked, drawing a look. It might have been approval, but with a mare like Willow, how could you tell?
Now that it's here, I wonder just how much training 99 security got in forensic investigation. In any case, it's nice Blackjack can at least throw some on-point commentary out.
“But more folks want the chance to trade and to pretend like we’re normal, so they’ll let every freakshow into this place.” She shot a pointed look at my mechanical legs.
I popped out a finger and scratched out a booger, making her squirm in disgust when I flicked it away with a grin. Freakshow that, Willow.
well, that's one way to respond to that hostility. Fits Blackjack, though.
“And then the Angel dies in custody!” she spat, stomping her forehooves in rage.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, and got a glare in response.
“That’s exactly what my fucking superiors said!” she snarled, jabbing her hoof at me. “But she was killed in custody and I don’t care if it was the Angel of Death or Princess Celestia; a crime is a crime! Then I dug some more and found out there was a whole slew of ponies killed in Hightower. No investigations. No nothing. Others had gotten hit by some sort of mind-sapping magic attack -- all fatal. And nopony was investigating! Somepony was covering it up, but I had no idea who.”
And now we're getting a little more meat on the bones of what was going on with Rumble when Rarity visited him in Happyhorn.
She snorted, looking back at the body. “Softheart snapped. Couldn’t take it. Maybe it was her injuries or something, but she couldn’t let it go. Said she could feel the Angel inside her. Woke up in her daughter’s room with a knife. Finally jumped in front of a subway train. Suicide. Case… fucking… closed.”
And we've seen both the Angel and Softheart in Rampage by now, so there's a pretty suggestive thread connecting them at this point, which of course further show's it's all in Softheart's head, but that doesn't mean she isn't right.
I looked at the skeptical ghoul and then smiled. “Because you have questions about the things that happened in Hightower. Niggling little things you want to know. Even if the answers don’t matter, you still want them.”
She glared at me for a long moment before she snorted, “Not that bad. Now get out of my mane. I need to get Tulip cremated and tell his mayorship to clean up the mess.” I felt like she’d slugged me. Mysteries! Potential answers! How could she pass that up?
Remember that thing about "it's not always about you, Blackjack"? There's the closely related point "everyone doesn't share your priorities."
“And Blackjack,” she called after me. I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the ghoul as she added grimly, “Keep your eyes out for somepony that can crush a skull with one blow.”
Possible misdirection to Rampage, but of course part of the problem here is that it doesn't fit the Angel's M.O. of strangulation, and the timing might be difficult, and Blackjack didn't notice a bunch of blood splatter on Rampage. That said, the chance to go after someone on Willow's home turf would be appealing to someone who had gone after her other investigator's child.
I wasn’t sure what the S.W.A.T. spray-painted out had stood for, though. ‘Security Whines A Ton’?
Well, she does like her S Ws & Ts.
As I trotted out of the bathroom, I turned my thoughts again to the task ahead. If I was going into Hightower, I’d need a strong team. Rampage, Lacunae, and Stygius were solid. Psychoshy might have conflicts, but I was pretty sure she’d follow him. That wasn’t quite enough though. At the very least I’d need somepony who knew the layout of the prison. Somepony who could deal with robots and turrets. Somepony who could keep us all alive. Somepony good with locks. Shears was an unknown; I hoped he had some combat skills.
And we enter heist-movie mode. Step: getting the team of specialists together.
I was halfway to the Afterlife club when I heard shouts coming from the front of the hospital. “Get out of here! You’re not welcome, Stripe!” I heard somepony bellow. “No Remnants here! Step off!”
I started towards the entrance when I heard a familiar mare cry out, “Oh Maiden of the Stars, why have you cursed me so!? I beg you, return and finish me off! End my torment!”
Yay! My favorite zebra is back!
I finally returned to a tunnel where I discovered that poor filly battered within an inch of her life,” she said with a shake of her head. Returned? I started to ask... then I wanted to ask about Boing’s injuries... then I felt really guilty and shut up, so she went on,
Too bad she didn't ask. That may have been able to clear up some stuff, considering it was a Four Stars tunnel.
“So I heard you unkilled a foal. How’d you pull that one off?” Psychoshy asked me. Then she noticed Xanthe and began sizing the zebra up as if trying to think of some sort of cutting remark, but upon seeing the terrified look in Xanthe’s eyes, she turned back to me with a clear ‘You’re not worth the effort’ snort.
Yeah, going after Xanthe does seem setting your sights pretty low.
“Well, aren’t you a hero,” the yellow pegasus said sarcastically to the zebra. Then she glanced over at Stygius, saw his disapproval, and blinked and forced a grin. “I mean, way to go!” Stygius just sighed and looked away. Psychoshy’s grimace melted into a worried, uncertain frown.
The power of disapproving looks. And it's sort of like he's stepping in to Rampage's role a bit here, in that he's working to keep Psychoshy in line.
We all shared a look and then looked back at the zebra, who suddenly seemed apprehensive. “You know about balefire bombs and rockets?” I asked.
“Well, I… it’s not my specialty at all. But… yes.” She looked nervously at her hooves, tapping them together. “That actually isn’t a rocket at all; it’s a missile that was fired from Dawn Bay. Shorter range, flat flight path, and more difficult to intercept.”
“Propoli and their toys,” Rampage muttered, rolling her eyes.
Okay, so jet engine powered cruise missile is what it sounds like. And some hints about Xanthe's background I believe, with the tribe that dealt with bombs.
I sighed, then smiled and patted Xanthe’s shoulder. “Right! You’re coming with us. You’re our resident balefire missile specialist.”
“Huh?” Xanthe blinked. “But I… I can’t… I mean… shouldn’t… I mean…” I just smiled at her as she stammered on for a minute or two and then said in a whimper, “I’m the most cursed zebra ever.”
“Yup,” I said as I put a hoof around her shoulder.
Now, it's true that Blackjack just volunteered Xanthe. But bear in mind that Xanthe gave at most a cursory, halfhearted protest before acceding to the pland, and it was all out in the open without any deception. Of course I can't say for sure, but I think it's pretty likely Blackjack would have let her back out if she really tried to not take part. This is a very important contrast with some stuff later that I've never really gotten over.
For the first time since I’d seen alicorns, I saw one that didn’t look like some cheap knockoff of Luna or Celestia. The golden silk dress with burgundy panels she wore was what I imagined a sunset should look like. Her brushed and curled mane seemed to blow in that ghostly wind. The traces of lip gloss and the golden glitter in the corners of her eyes gave off just the right sparkle. Burgundy ribbons and the gold wire that I’d traded to Tulip had been woven around her hooves. They’d even fashioned a tiara for her from the wire. The collected ghouls stared on in joy as she stood there before us all. If Celestia were the sun and Luna the moon, Lacunae could be sunrise and sunset.
Great description there, and that doesn't sound too far off from what Twilight wore at her coronation.
“I see,” she said with a gentle smile at the surrounding ghouls. “Well, I wish to thank you all for your kindness. It really is a lovely dress.”
Velvet just blushed. “Well, it’s nice to make something special,” she said with a little sniff as she looked up at the mare. The ghouls nodded, and a few even seemed to give little bows towards the alicorn. “Please. Take it. I always dreamed of making something for royalty. I think every seamstress does. You’re as close as I’m ever going to get.”
This is one of the few times I've felt very positive about Twilight becoming a princess. It makes this all the more bittersweet.
Opposite them were Willow and Windclop, talking to each other in low voices. Carrion lurked in the corner along with Ahuizotl, who looked much too happy about this. The far end of the table was occupied by the ragged form of Mr. Shears.
“Ah, welcome. I’m glad you decided to quit playing dressup and join us,” Shears rasped.
“Right,” I said as I looked around at the assembled people. “We’re all here because we’re going to do the impossible: break into Hightower. I know it’s an irradiated fortress filled with automated defenses, feral glowing ghouls, deadly radiation, and soul sapping Enervation, but working together, I know that we can get in, get what we need done, and get out again. If anyone wants to quit, now’s the time to back out.”
What's Willow doing there?
“What I’m looking for is in the attic,” he said, his filmy eyes peering into my own over the rag covering his face. “It’s right next door to the broadcast center on the top floor, so it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.” From everypony else, the response was just shrugs, but I remembered what Razorwire had told me the first time we’d met. ‘Took me up to the attic. Put a bullet in my head.’ And then, as if reading my mind, Shears said, “I’ve been waiting an eternity to get up there.”
. . . I see what you did there.
It must have shown on my face, because Shears snorted, then dug out some .308 shell casings and tossed them on the conference table. “Please. I’ve taken steps for that. These talismans will ward off the Enervation for several hours. I suggest you not lose them, or you’ll get an intimate lesson in what happened to everypony in the Core.”
And now we know just what those are: filled with moonstone. I'm not sure it really makes sense to call them "talismans," but then he could just be simplifying or covering up.
“You don’t. That talisman is the product of ancient zebra magic. If it doesn’t work, you’ll find out quite quickly.”
Looks like covering up. Though I suppose it could be true. Then again, if it were moonstone then he wouldn't need to make the point about "several hours," and could probalby pitch it as more of a sure thing.
“Well…” I slowly looked at all of them. “Depending on how much radiation Lacunae’s got sucked up… I might know a pony who they will listen to.”
grrr
Everypony with a pulse besides Rampage and Lacunae had a half dozen dozes of Rad-X and Rad-Away; I’d raided Bonesaw at Megamart, since I was in the area.
Hasn't Rampage gotten all mutated up before? Or was that on Flux?
Nurse Graves looked back with a worried frown. “Are you sure about bringing her?”
“What?” I asked with a grin. “She’s coming along, isn’t she? She’s happy to help her friend.”
The ghoul frowned, and my smile slipped a little. “But does she understand what we’re doing here?” the nurse asked.
“She understands enough. I know she’s not all there, but she’s our best chance for getting through the ghouls without getting torn to pieces.”
No, no, I'm not really sure she does. And though this is at heart the same tactic used in the Boneyard itself, the circumstances have changed considerably.
She still didn’t look very happy about my choice, but answered, “It’s… hard to explain. It’s like there’s a thing inside you that’s you. Like a tiny guttering flame. If you’re careful and protect it, then you can remember who you are. But if it goes out…” She shook her head. “Wheelbarrow believes there’s some life magic in the living that keeps that flame protected. Like… glue. But in ghouls it’s much weaker.”
“It’s your soul,” Mr. Shears said from the middle of the group. “A pony can continue living so long as they have the tiniest fragment of their soul. Without it, we’re mindless animals at best. We might have a brain, but we would have no will to suppress our aggressive urges.” His cloudy eyes glanced behind us. “Retaining one’s soul is easier when you are alive because your living flesh has a strong natural bond with your spirit.”
Well, that wasn't so hard to explain. Yay, science! Also, of course, more detail on how souls work is always welcome.
There was only one pony who wasn’t getting attacked. One who was squinting at a rancid advertisement for mane curlers, oblivious to the battle. I took a deep breath and bellowed as loudly as I could, “Spoon!”
The glowing gray ghoul looked up, blinking her luminescent green eyes from behind her deformed spectacle frames. “Oh! Sorry! Coming!” she yelled as she trotted towards the fight. The glowing gray mare snorted at the ferals. “Hey! Stop that! Get off them right now!” she said as she trotted into the middle of them. “If you don’t stop fighting, I’m going to report you to Pinkie Pie!” The ghostly green light emanating from within her seemed to brighten, and the ferals hissed and slowly backed away. She nodded primly. “There. Knew that’d get them to behave.”
This was the reason she was brought along. Why was the reaction time on getting her involved so slow? In-universe, not on the level of wanting a fight scene since it's been half a chapter without one.
“Are you sure everything’s okay, Tiara? I mean, you’re like being totally nice. It’s weird.” I got the impression that Diamond Tiara hadn’t been the most pleasant of ponies to be around.
“Yeah. Sure. I’m just glad you’re helping me get back into my office. It was so embarrassing to be locked out.” I grinned sheepishly, and Silver Spoon nodded slowly with sympathy.
“It’s okay. I’m so glad to be able to, like, do anything with you! The M.o.M. has been such a total nightmare since Goldenblood was replaced.”
I'm not comfortable with this. Though I am interested in the nighmare after Goldie's ouster.
“So, Quartz calls the shots then?” I asked as I glanced at the others, who looked a tad impatient.
“Oh it’s nothing that direct. Like, whenever Pinkie Pie orders all the ‘bad ponies’ in Equestria to be arrested, we look at Quartz two minutes after Pinkie leaves the room, and she nods or shakes her head… usually shakes… and we just stall till Pinkie Pie gets distracted by something else.” She rolled her eyes. “If it weren’t for Pumpkin and Pound, I think they would have cut her out completely, but those two can usually handle her when she’s raving.”
Couldn't have needed to stall that long. And these little looks into the internals of some of the ministries are nice background.
Silver Spoon sighed and rolled her glowing eyes. “Oh, business as usual in the party sectors, but totally a mess in the law enforcement branch. I mean, Quartz is still there, but she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on anymore. I mean, she seemed to be really close and devoted to Goldenblood, so maybe she’s just hanging in there while Horse settles in. I dunno. No pony does...” I wondered if Horse even knew what Quartz did at the M.o.M.
Let's see. No, it does seem like Horse knew her job was holding Pinkie in line, especially for the law enforcement branch. So maybe she was just broken up over Goldenblood's departure, or Pinkie feeling emboldened, or just pushing harder because she knew Quartz was a "nogood terrible bad pony."
Unseal Project Eternity: Y/N?
Project Eternity. The search for eternal life. I looked at Mr. Shears; his glossy white eyes seemed to drink in the words on the terminal screen. “This is what you’re after?”
The question made him balk. “What? No. That’s simply history. You probably have far more interest in that than I do.” His annoyance seemed so sincere that if he was playing me, he’d probably been a performer in another life.
Well, he did have a thing for one as a kid.
The parasprites went black and tumbled down around the large book that was bound in what looked unsettlingly like darkened zebra hide.
Come on, you've never freaked out over parchment before, and just earlier this chapter you were thinking with some interest whether the ghouls would have dressed Lacunae in lace or leather. And let's not forget the dragon hide jacket you just got.
Rarity stared raptly at the text. “Soul silk?” she whispered, taking a step back from the table. Then suddenly she narrowed her eyes and glared. “I don’t know who you are or what you are, but I know when somepony… er… book… is trying to play me for a fool!”
I love Rarity being dramatic.
But though she glared at the book, there before her eyes was what she wanted. Her magic slammed the book shut with all its force. “You might have killed my poor parasprites, but we’ll see how you do when Twilight gets her hooves on you.” She picked up the phone and stared to dial, then paused and looked back at the book. Little beads of sweat popped from her brow. “Now Rarity, just look at it! It’s clearly a wicked thing! I mean, it’s made from a zebra! How grotesque!” She continued dialling, but more slowly now, her eyes drawn back to the horrible text.
Again, I'm pretty sure you've regularly used parchment. Is it that it's zebra? If so, what was all the other parchment? Dog, cat? There aren't so many kinds of dumb animal to get hide from, after all.
She slowly pressed the receiver to her ear. “No no, Twilight. It’s Rarity. I just…” She paused, and her eyes turned concerned once more. “Twilight… I… yes, I know. I’m sorry. I know… Oh Twilight, please don’t cry.” Rarity curled a little around the phone, her eyes returning to the closed book. “Yes… yes… I know… when I imagine it being one of you…” Rarity sniffed and scrubbed a tear from her eye. “Yes… I know. Try… try to get some sleep. Ask for some time off if you need it. And if Luna doesn’t like it, tell her to take over the M.A.S. herself.”
Rarity’s eyes lingered on the dark tome one last time, then said in low tones, as if afraid the book might hear, “I might need your help. Nothing major… certainly nothing that needs to involve Goldenblood. Just need… some friendly advice. Right… good. Please take care of yourself, Twilight.”
The receiver returned to the cradle, and she stared at the book for the longest time, biting her hoof. Finally, she approached it as if it were a snake. “Well… it wouldn’t hurt to know the details…” she murmured as she carefully straightened the book and opened it slowly once more.
Even though it didn't last very long, the two calls, as clearly wearying and difficult as they were showed that it did take some real pressure to overcome Rarity's resistance to using the book.
They’d nearly gotten completely across when one of the pipes gave a sharp bang overhead and fluid the consistency of fecal matter began to dribble from it and pile up on the catwalk. I stared in horror as the bluish heap began to lunge up and wiggle. It thrust out two hooves towards me and a dripping equine head emerged. Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards Stygius and Psychoshy.
. . .
“Carrion! Lacunae! Blast that pipe!” I shouted, pointing with my sword further down the corroded span.
***twilightversusnewpaper***
***pro tip don't do that***
Finally, there was a resounding crack as the corroded pipe split, sending the stream of goop splashing into the frothing mess below. “Lacunae, clear the way!” I bellowed as I gave ground.
Mhmm. Because that's a lot better than a smaller, constant amount coming out in a known location.
“Like, I think that this place totally needs a major inspection! Somepony isn’t doing their job at all, Tiara!” Spoon yelled as she raced across with Nurse Graves.
You tell 'em! This isn't up to standard at all!
There are reasons this was, I think, the first fic to make me like Silver Spoon.
“Like… I wanna go home. I wanna go home right now, Tiara!” came a call from above.
*Looking disapprovingly at Blackjack*
The huge slime head was starting to rear again as Lacunae landed.
Shears got the door open, and the group funneled through into the next room as Lacunae stood majestically before the immense head of slime. “You! Shall! Not! Hurt! My! Friends!” she shouted as her eyes glowed with power. Each word was punctuated by an arrow of furious silver magic that exploded on impact, blasting out huge gobs of the monster’s mass. It still came on, more and more goop surging towards the alicorn.
Not quite her first "You shall not pass!" but close. And this time, I believe she is actually on a bridge. Well, catwalk.
“Tiara! What is going on?” Silver Spoon asked, staring at me through her blackened frames.
“Not now, Silver Spoon.”
I hate to admit it, but Blackjack's right. Better give the answer soon, though.
“Yeah. Besides, what could we have done if we had known? Bring a couple tons of gelatin?” I gave a weak grin to the others. Most of them looked decidedly unamused, but Rampage didn’t let me down.
Smirking back at me, she tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Acidic pony gelatin monsters. Delicious as they are jiggly.” That got a few more nervous smiles.
I like it. I'd like to think they'd end up as gelatinous cubes. Also, more talk about eating animal products.
“So, now that we’re past the… um… Slime... Ooze...”
“Smooze?” Xanthe suggested, and every eye turned to her. She dropped her eyes sheepishly. “Sorry…”
You should be. Go stand in the corner!—No, no, don't go. Don't cry! It was a fine pun, and you didn't know. It's okay.
Silver Spoon looked positively spooked as she sat down. I chewed on my lip. When I’d remembered the ghoul and how she mistook me for her friend, using her to get past the ferals seemed innocuous. But even she was realizing something was wrong now.
And Blackjack is still missing the point that just the fact she's realizing something is wrong isn't the real problem.
“Tiara! Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on? You found my glasses, but… but everything seems wrong. It doesn’t make sense.” She gave a nervous little smile. “It’s a joke, right? A joke on those blank flanks, right?” Her voice cracked as she reached up to touch her glass-streaked face. I just looked at her shamefully as she begged, “Please tell me it’s all a joke?”
I wanted to smile. I’d planned on smiling. Get through Hightower and leave her with the other ghouls in Meatlocker. Use her… damn it
Yep. Now she's starting to see.
“Blackjack, what’s going on? Why does she keep calling you Tiara?” Rampage asked in a low voice.
“‘Cause, like, that’s her name! Duh…” Silver Spoon said with a little snort. “Tiara, why does Twist keep calling you Blackjack?” She gave a long stare at my corroded metal legs and the little pits the slime had eaten into the steel. Her eyes met mine as they slowly widened. “It’s a joke. Please… it’s a joke!”
And now I'd really like to see some anger and a "What the hell!?" from Rampage. I know it's not as personal for her as, say, Boing, but I just need someone on the inside to call this out.
“Something bad happened, didn’t it? Like, something really bad?” Silver Spoon sobbed as she hugged her head. “I… I think it did but whenever I think about it…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head hard. “I just wanted to find Tiara! She… she could tell me what to do. She always told everypony what to do.” She sniffed and rubbed her nose. “She’s, like, my only friend, and I’m hers. She totally needs me…”
Tearing up a bit now. Come to think of it, this is the second day in a row I've read some good—and sympathetic—Silver Spoon.
“I’m really sorry for misleading you,” I said, a touch defensively. I had asked her to help. She just hadn’t realized what was going on. “But I did really need your help. And… I didn’t want to just leave you behind in those tunnels.”
No, Blackjack, you don't get to be defensive here! This wasn't okay, and the fact you wanted to get through it without her ever realizing you were lying to her suggest you knew it!
“I really hate to break up this latest installment of ‘What the fuck, Blackjack,’ but four of us are slowly dying here,” Rampage said with a snort at me.
And Rampage comes through for me! Too bad it's muted and abbreviated since four of them are dying, but I'll take what I can get!
“The problem is that your idea hurt somepony who didn’t deserve it. In the scale of Wasteland crimes, it was probably around the level of littering. But you set such a high standard for yourself in the eyes of others that when you slip, it seems so much worse. Most ponies in the Wasteland would simply kill Silver Spoon. You tricked her. Pretty nice for the Wasteland. Pretty horrible for Blackjack.”
I guess that pretty much sums it up. But it's not a good line of thinking for Blackjack to have, that she can deceive others into helping her just because she needs it. And I have a feeling that P-21 in particular would have been very unhappy about this—using others is something he takes very personally.
I sighed as I followed along behind everypony else, “So what do I do about it?”
“Getting her out of here alive would be a good start,” the alicorn said, patting me on the head like I was a filly.
Aww . . .
“You are correct. One of the first things Project Eternity attempted was to create soul jars. The idea was simple: make armor, or even clothing, turn it into a soul jar… and be protected from all harm.” He licked his lips with a cracked, boiled tongue. “That was the idea. The reality was far different. Far more disturbing. The project was a failure, and those failures were locked away down here. They were too unpredictable to move.”
More history of Eternity. It's really one of the more interesting projects.
He kept his eyes straight. “I thought this would be so much… different.”
Well, that was reassuring. “Me too, but… welcome to Hoofington,” I muttered. “Don’t forget your complimentary bag of suck.”
“It’s easy to blame Hoofington, the Wasteland, and long dead ponies. Far easier than blaming ourselves.” He turned towards the others, saying to me, “I don’t know what we’ll find, but I doubt it will be peaceful.” Then he trotted back to tell them he’d found another way out of the basement.
Well, in fairness, she can much better blame the city, the Wasteland, and dead ponies than Snips can. You know, since she didn't have a role in creating the situation.
‘Click click click’ went my radiation meter. No time to waste. “Okay... be ready for... anything. Don’t touch anything.”
It's like the Cave of Wonders, only with radiation instead of fire and lava, and it's present even before you touch anything!
“We experimented on all these objects. First we tried using animal souls. Then some volunteers. Mules. Poor ponies that wouldn’t be missed. But necromancy was an unknown art. Twilight and Celestia both disagreed with Rarity about it, so she went to Goldenblood behind their backs.
Celestia? Why would she get a say?
“Twilight Sparkle. I wish she could have understood. I wanted to be able to do this with her. But after Celestia’s examination of my little guidebook here, she was adamantly against it.”
Oh, right. That incident. Also, hypocrite.
Behind us, a music box began to play. I knew the melody perfectly; my mane stood on end as I turned to stare at the tiny porcelain box with two dancing figurines slowly turning above it. Hush now, Quiet Now... I licked my lips, staring at it in apprehension. “Okay. Who turned that on?” No one spoke. My magic glowed and I turned the little lever at the side to off.
It didn’t turn off. It began to scream; not a scream like I could hear with my ears. This was like the wail of Enervation; the hysterical scream was in my head. Toys rocked. Books fluttered their pages. Dozens of voices babbled all at once.
Now that's some good atmosphere, and a nice callback to the song.
Suddenly a swath of silk shot off the shelf and coiled once around her throat, once around a metal support beam, and yanked tight. The pegasus went silent, eyes bulging as her hooves clawed at the silk swath. Her legs lifted up, kicking out at the air as she struggled to get free. Rampage moved up on one side, ripping at the silk with her hoofclaws in a desperate attempt to try and cut through it. An umbrella opened, rolled to face me, then closed with a snap, launching itself and plunging into my neck. I gasped and fell back against the shelf, blood spurting from the hole as the umbrella thrashed wildly.
I wasn’t the only one in trouble. Carrion had a teddy bear latched onto his face that seemed to be trying to crush his skull. Xanthe curled up in a ball as four floating boots slammed and stomped on her. A cowpony hat had forced itself over Nurse Graves’s head and seemed to be trying to twist it completely off. Meanwhile, a floating screwdriver was doing its best to try and take Cerberus apart as it dodged and stabbed and spun. One of Cerberus’s eyes popped free, dangling by a cable. “Oh, you are going to pay for that, you subversive tool of zebra domination!”
I love this as a great example of horrifying mixed with hilarity. Also, it's clearly symbolic of how consumerist materialism has sapped the soul of Western culture while simultaneously leading on the path to its physical destruction. /pomposity /sarcasm
I rose, moving to try and help Psychoshy, when one of her powerhooves lashed out and blasted me straight in the face. I flew clear through the shelf, sending splinters of wood everywhere, crashed through the next, and landed in a heap. I struggled to keep conscious, trying to shake off the disorientation. Blood trickled out my nostrils and ears as I lay there in a heap. Well, at least she hadn’t shot me!
In fairness, it's not like she carries a gun, or you gave her one.
Then I saw a suit of strange light recon barding slip off a shelf. It trotted towards me, limp and swaying as if caught in a wind. I struggled to rise, but it didn’t attack. I slowly lifted my head towards it, and it pointed its sleeve towards the corner of the room.
Hi, Stealthsuit!
I looked over at where Stygius was trying to flicker flash away, disappearing and reappearing in place. It was clear that he couldn’t take Psychoshy with him. His own teleportation, while functional in the dampening field, wasn’t like Lacunae’s.
Okay, we've had Lacunae forgetting about the dampening field, Blackjack trying to use her shotgun against the Smooze, and now Stygius forgetting how his own power works. There's been a lot of desperation here.
“Good thing you’re already ugly!” the mare shouted as she charged and smashed her hoof into his face with a crunching sound. His deformed features twisted grotesquely as Rampage hooked her claws around the bear and pulled. With a grind of bone and a ripping of skin and feathers, she pulled the teddy bear free. It struggled, wiggling its ghoul-eye-gunk-covered plush arms at her as its mouth opened and closed silently, but a ghostly voice screamed in rage in my mind.
Eugh. I think Carrion wins for worst experience in that room.
Xanthe lifted her forehooves to run, and the boots attacking her suddenly reversed, putting themselves on the ends of her forelegs. “Oh no...” she whimpered as they yanked her up, and the other two jammed themselves on her back legs. “Help me!” she screamed as the boots yanked her to her hooves and send her galloping straight at a solid cinder block wall!
Classic. Well, what I'd normally think of is them forcing her to dance indefinitely, but close enough.
I dropped into S.A.T.S., targeted her closest hoof, and said a little prayer to Celestia that I wasn’t about to make her a stub.
Interesting that S.A.T.S. works but not EFS.
The spell executed a single stroke that bit into the boot’s leather. A moment later I heard a sharp cry from the boot as the leather parted in a gash a few inches long, and instantly all four boots jerked off her legs and scampered towards the far side of the storage room.
And, to perhaps some surprise, we find the vulnerability of soul jars to starmetal.
The red scarf stopped trying to choke Stygius and instead looped itself around the next closest pony, wrapping itself around her neck and crushing her throat!
Nurse Graves gave a slightly annoyed look at the silk around her neck and trotted in the direction of the corner of the room.
Nice little joke there.
I looked at Nurse Graves and the silk swath that was trying to choke her to death. “You know, that’s not going to work. She doesn’t need to breathe.” The ends of the scarf seemed to flutter in frustration. Nurse Graves looked at me coolly, arching her brow as her neck indented. I floated the sword towards the silk. “Now, let her go or we’ll find out just how sharp my sword really is.”
The silk released her and floated in the air a moment.
And then coiled tightly around the handle of my blade!
With a great wrench, it pulled the blade around and began to slice wildly at us.
Blackjack can now add accessories to the list of things she's been burned by being merciful to.
Then the blade began slipping through my grip.
“My magic can’t get a grip on it!” Shears shouted. “That sword wants to kill!”
Yep. And that, along with the fact that it's made from the Eater of Souls, is why I don't think that "The Starmetal Sword Chronicles" (cute as it is) really fits well. The characterization just doesn't match.
“Are you okay?” I asked, feeling slightly odd talking to a suit. What counted as ‘okay’ to a soul jar suit of barding?
It reached down to a small speaker on its belt and there was a hiss, and then an synthetic mare’s voice said, “Combat ended. No healing or chems needed.”
“Oh, you can talk?” I asked, and the suit shook its head.
“That’s all. You’re my best friend forever. Sneaking now, shhhhhh,” the suit said seemingly at random. Xanthe slowly crept closer to get a better look.
“Oh, you can only say things that suit has programed into it?” I asked, and the collar of the suit went up and down as if nodding.
Aww. This chapter has a surprising number of really cute characters, between the return of Xanthe and Silver Spoon and the introduction of Stealthsuit.
“We didn’t remove her from it.” Shears glanced at the infiltration suit, and it shrank back. “Naturally, the zebras were curious about what we were doing here. But one, at least, never reported back. Rarity, of course, always the designer, attempted some modifications to her suit,” he said as he rose to his hooves, looking at the other display cases. “But this was Eternity’s first failure. The soul armor. Creating invulnerable, eternally powerful armor with a complete soul bound within.” He looked at the armor with disappointment. “We assumed that, without a mind, a soul was just... a thing. Something special that made a pony a pony, or a griffin a griffin. When we transferred a complete soul to an object, however, it began to manifest... peculiar powers. Even brushing a soul could bestow strange effects on the tool.” He looked back at me. “Worse, the soul within could affect the mind of the wearer.”
And now Octavia starts to make more sense, and it's easier to see what could have happened to the series of ponies connected to Hightower who now show up in Rampage.
I heard Rarity’s voice and saw a pristine suit of combat barding on a charred corpse. “Test one... armor failed to protect from enemy flamer.” The same combat barding on an intact corpse, minus a hole through the stallion’s face. “Test two... armor failed to protect from enemy sniper.” A piece of gray combat armor with a helmet and completely intact faceplace. “Test three.... armor failed to protect from crushing blows inflicted to throat.” The same armor, this time Rarity speaking with frustration. “Test four... armor failed to protect from poisoned rations!” A lacy purple gown with veil on a pink unicorn mare with a blackened face. “Test five... armor failed to protect from being garroted by her own scarf!” A smashed and broken stallion wearing a tuxedo. “Test six! Armor failed... again... to protect from being pushed out a window!” Finally, a suit of dirty power armor. Rarity’s voice was now tired and frayed. “Test Seven... armor failed... to protect... when buried alive... in a landslide...”
Oh, perfectionism. Unicorn trait, or just a coincidence it shows up most strongly in Twilight and Rarity among the mane six?
“Hey. Tick tick, remember? Or click click click. As cool as ghouls are, I really don’t want to be one!” the yellow pegasus said.
So, what's it called when you go slumming in a graveyard?
“Wait! What about her?” Xanthe asked, gesturing to the possessed infiltration suit. “We can’t just leave her.”
I looked back at the others and then at the infiltration suit. Her? “Um... I’m not a zebra, but doesn’t possessed armor count above a 9.0 on the standard scale of curses?”
Xanthe chewed her lip a moment and cast her eyes downward. “I’ve been touched by the Star Maiden... I don’t think I can get any more cursed than that.” Then she looked at the zebra armor. “At least this way I won’t be cursed alone.”
“Well... it’s your call. But if the armor possesses you...” I said in worry. The armor had helped us get out of the other room; I wasn’t terribly worried about it being evil... but still.
“If it does, I am already damned,” she said in a near whisper. I couldn’t help myself; I gave her an impulsive hug that made the zebra go rigid. I supposed getting a hug from the most evil being in your mythology might be a little disconcerting. The poor zebra certainly looked uncomfortable as I released her. She removed the hazmat suit, and the infiltration suit immediately opened up. A minute later it zipped up completely, latching itself in place.
“You’re my new best friend,” the armor chirped, making the zebra mare actually blush. The black and white armor was just tight enough for her to pull the hazmat suit back on over it.
Xanthe is so nice!
I don't know, I mean sure, it could be alarming, worrying, but when it all has to be the second order fear that comes from thinking you're being seduced to the dark side by how nice the super evil entity is, and how much she cares . . . well, all I'm saying is unless you believe the devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist, the most effective form is probably going to be charismatic, caring, and sympathetic.
I think I've said it before, but Xanthe has certain characteristics in common with Littlepip and Glory.
Rampage hummed softly behind me, singing to herself, “Nothing can stop... the smooze...” I glared back at her, and she blinked then gave a grin in return.
So along with "Shoo be doo" that makes at least two G1 song references. Have there been others?
I walked to the library door and slowly pushed it open.
And stepped into Hell.
The vast central shaft of Hightower rose ten stories above me. Midway up, like a fiery dagger plunged into the heart of the structure, the missile jutted out into the middle of the space. Blue fire flew off the tip in volcanic eruptions that sprayed the sticky blue flame in glowing arcs. The unnatural blaze continued burning, no matter what it landed on, and the middle of the shaft was awash in a ring of radioactive fire. Inside every cell, blue-glowing shapes screamed and hammered against their restraints. Sentry robots rolled around the walkways, their metal bodies bent and warped by the tremendous heat.
So now we have (another?) idea of what Blackjack expects Hell to be like.
A gargantuan charred face appeared, wreathed in blue flame as it glared down at us. From a dozen loudspeakers all around us boomed a crackling voice. “Hello, convicts. I am Warden Hobble, administrator for this facility, and your host for the duration of your sentence for crimes against Equestria. I look forward to making your stay here as... comfortable... as possible.” He gave a ragged, mocking laugh. “Welcome to the Tower!”
I stared up at that immense, burning leer on the screen for a moment, and then Psychoshy muttered, “He wasn’t in the plan either...”
Hee.
- Chapter Forty Six Overall Thoughts:
- I'm not sure that this chapter, "Caper," was appropriately named. I can't really think of anything that's a mystery that's really contained in it. Sure, there's the murder of Tulip, but that's resolved—well, swept to the side—immediately and without conflict. There's stuff related to Eternity and perhaps even Hightower more generally, but those aren't especially tied in to the chapter. Sure, stuff happens with them, but I'm not sure there's any particular reason to say this one is more associated with them than others. Basically, I think it might have been titled to work in with the cliffhanger from the last chapter and the start which looked like it could be a crime/forensic drams, but again, that was dropped, or at least deferred, early on. Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing what the title was referring to, if anyone remembers specifically.
Moving on, considering the chapter basically deals with waltzing into one of the worst locations this side of the Canterlot Ruins or the Core, there's a fair amount of endearing stuff going on. One thing that gets to mostly wait until later is the return of Boing, who is in fact not dead, just very badly beaten, and was rescued and brought to Meatlocker by Xanthe. Xanthe is the second endearing thing. Then there's the Stealthsuit, who appers right near the end. And finally, the return of Silver Spoon.
Xanthe mostly just gets to be really cute, doing things like bemoaning how cursed she is and wishing for Blackjack to appear and finish the job, then fainting when Blackjack shows up. But she gets a little more, too, with some interaction with Shujaa showing that she's a Propoli crafter. Later conversation shows that although it's not her specialty, she can work on a balefire bomb (also, what's lodged in Hightower isn't a rocket, but a (presumably jet powered cruise) missile fired from Dawn Bay. I believe this is setting up her background as coming from a group that handled missiles and was coerced into joining the Remnant, but I could be mistaken there. She also demonstrates she can hold her own in a fight, exhibiting some martial arts skills while fighting soul jars, even if she's not up to the level of, say, Shujaa.
Silver Spoon's return has always been a sore spot for me, despite the fact that the Hightower arc may have been the first time I ever really liked the character. Basically, it comes down to the fact that Blackjack deceived her into helping them get through the feral ghouls in the tunnels below Hightower. I believe that in very recent chapters, there may have been something Blackjack's done that I thought was worse, but there have been very few things through that point that came close, especially if you look post-Scoodle. And no, I don't really think Boing is up there in the same way, essentially because that was what I'd think of as a forced error: there was a lot pushing Blackjack in the direction that led to that, and though she bears a large portion of the blame for that, so too, I think do her friends and, frankly, nobody. There were significant psychological issues feeding into that, and at the most immediate level, killing those two ponies and almost killing Boing was an accident. This, in contrast, was putting a helpless, confused person in grave danger on purpose and on false pretenses in order to get what she wanted. Lacunae kind of downplays it, and Rampage, though clearly unhappy about it, pushes it off because they didn't have time then with a bunch of the people dying of radiation. One of the things that strikes me as especially wrong, though, is how Blackjack didn't even seem to think she did anything wrong until after things started to no longer go according to plan and the real danger kicked in, apart, anyway, from hoping Silver Spoon would just never notice the trick. And I can't help but feel that in order for her to believe that she had to think of Silver Spoon as more of a tool than a person, which despite how out of it Silver Spoon is, rather reflects a Stable 99 mentality that I'd hope Blackjack would have outgrown—especially when elsewhere in the chapter Blackjack mentions how she likes ghouls. And I suppose it's not the easiest thing to leave behind, when it's part of the bedrock of your society for most of your life, but all the same, this is something that I think would have been nixed immediately if P-21 had been there, because I think he would have seen it in a similar light.
From a plot level, what we learn is mostly related to Project Eternity. There are some flashbacks to Rarity, first being given the soul jar spell by the black book after resisting its allure, being worn down by the plight of Fluttershy and Twilight in the wake of Big Mac's death. Then there's her with Snips and Snails, performing the ritual on Petunia, whose whole soul is placed into a piece of silk, killing the mare. This comes around later, when Blackjack uses this knowledge to get her to stop attacking, saying that she wasn't the one who killed her and that killing her wouldn't bring her back or help her, then imploring her to show that she had once been a good pony, and to be one now. Then there's a scene of Rarity testing her soul armor, and rejecting each as failures as they fail to protect the wearer in increasingly ridiculous test cases, often ones where armor woudn't be expected to help anyway. There's also discussion with Snips, who gives some of the history and properties of the project and its products, including how things infused with or touched by souls tended to take on a life of their own and would influence those who used them. Basically, lots of stuff slowly filling in the maze pointing towards Rampage. Who, incidentally, never seems to take an interest in these conversations about pony immortality, a phrase that was directly used in her hearing. But that'll probably be dealt with later.
From an action perspective, there was some pretty good stuff, particularly the Smooze—the unstoppable acidic goo ponies and liquid mass—and the room full of hostile soul jars. The fight with the feral ghouls, though in some ways interesting, was undermined by the fact that it took so long to call Silver Spoon in to do her part, which was the sole reason she was even there. I have a feeling this was done mainly because fully half a chapter had gone with no action scene at all, so the idea was to make this a bigger one than it probably should have been on the merits. Crucially, in the fight with the soul jars, we find that the starmetal sword, and thus starmetal, can harm and kill soul jars. Snips also says what I'd long suspected, namely that the sword wants to kill.
Now I'll say that Rampage, Psychoshy, and Lacunae all get some good lines, and Stygius even gets some blink-and-you'll-miss-it character development, here:
“Well, aren’t you a hero,” the yellow pegasus said sarcastically to the zebra. Then she glanced over at Stygius, saw his disapproval, and blinked and forced a grin. “I mean, way to go!” Stygius just sighed and looked away. Psychoshy’s grimace melted into a worried, uncertain frown.
by starting to be able to influence Psychoshy, however slightly and uncertainly at this time. But it's also showing that he does in fact have standards for how he wants people to act (especially his romantic partner), and this lends a bit more credence to his noble posturing. After all, I bet what Xanthe did and Psychoshy was sarcastically mocking was something Stygius would do, or at the very least something he believes he would do, in a heartbeat, because it's who he is and the role he sees himself in. Remember—heart-shaped shield cutie mark and all that. But the thing is, focus is spread too thin. At this point, let's see if I can offhand name everyone in the Hightower party: Blackjack, Lacunae, Stygius, Psychoshy, Rampage, Snips, Nurse Graves, Carrion, the robot—C something—Cerberus!, Silver Spoon. So that's ten, and I may have been missing someone, but I know there were fewer than twelve because that was brought up at one point. Point is, that leaves many characters not getting much focus, and some of them just sort of disappearing from time to time. It's not the worst thing, but it's there, helped somewhat by how little Carrion seems to do anything anyway and how it's often been Lacunae's habit to stick to the background.
So yeah, fair amount to like about the chapter, but it's also not the best paced and raiksed some anger in me directed at Blackjack, which on balance is probaly a good thing, since although her treatment of Silver Spoon is something I hope and wish she'd never do, it is something that can make sense coming from her and can serve as an important milestone in her story, a vital lesson about trust and using others. Too bad it's kind of a generalization of the 99 story, but it's something she needs to be able to remember without the benefit of P-21 around to remind her.
- Chapter Forty Six Editing:
- shoot out her nostrils. “You’re a lousy
three spaces after period
“She might have been coming to deliver your barding and came across something worth killing over.”
I think "came" should be "come" on the basis that it's probably still working with the "might have"
Would have quit, but.. hrmph, what else was I going to do?”
ellipsis needs third dot
there were lots of old grudges against Zebrakind in Meatlocker.
"Zebrakind" shouldn't be capitalized
smile along with a tiny nod. Rampage looked at
the whole planning thing. I sighed as I rose
bows towards the alicorn. “Please
only one space after period
And so long as the Goddess feels misery, doubt, and self recrimination,
I think "self recrimination" should be hyphenated
“Ah, welcome. I’m glad you decided to quit playing dressup and join us,” Shears rasped.
I think "dressup" should either be hyphenated or have a space
“On the ground floor are the cafeteria, gymnasium, library and classrooms.”
comma after "library"
Patients and staff who were trapped there…. We didn’t have
ellipsis should have only three dots
Nurse Graves continued, “In medical, there are a number of ghouls, robots, and turrets. Patients and staff who were trapped there…. We didn’t have time to use up all the medical supplies, so there’s a large stockpile we can use to purge radiation.
“The second level is a bit more problematic. The high security area has more robots and turrets. The warhead is our biggest problem. Its magic has produced ghouls of… substantial strength. And while it is there, I doubt many of the living will last long.” Mr. Shears looked at Cerberus and Xanthe. “If the robot can follow her instructions and dump the warhead out of the hole, we should be able to get up the elevator to the armory and guard station.”
I think the second paragraph is being spoken by Shears. If so, the first should end with a closing quotation mark.
from the armory. Fortunately, we have n
three spaces after period
But somehow the thought of trying to blast our way through hundreds of ghouls had put quite a dampener on everypony’s mood.
I think it's "damper"
Take EC-1101 far and away from Hoofington and give up the idea that I would ever find out what Horizons was or what Goldenblood had planned to do with it.
Should that just be "far away"?
covered except for a small metal one marked ‘Emergency exit. Alarm will sound’. Willow pushed
it seems off for the sign to have a period for the first part but not the second; should the second period be inside the quotation marks?
her voice low and tense. “This should be
three spaces after period
None of us had any time to go to Stygius’ aid.
"Stygius's"
as she bucked, stomped and bodyslammed the ghouls with such force that some of them exploded between the wall and her armor.
comma after "stomped"
“Get yer stinkin’ hooves off me you damned dirty ghoul!” Cerberus shouted as he struggled to keep aloft with three ghouls clamped down on his limbs.
comma after "me"?
fending off their attackers. Xanthe muttered over
only one space after period
“Stand down!” I shouted as the ghouls pawed
should have only one space after quotation
“Need to frag this maggot-loving superior officer… Damn combat inhibitor!” he muttered darkly.
should have second space after ellipsis or not capitalize "Damn"
“So, Quartz calls the shots then?” I asked as I glanced at the others, who looked a tad impatient.
should have only one space after quotation
concealed in the back wall. Directly ahead was a
and nearly collapsed. My friends and the dingy
only one space after period
“Oh, no Fluttershy, I was talking to the parasprites.
comma after "no"?
“Yes Dear… yes… yes… I’m sorry you feel so rotten… yes… I know… I love you too. Right. Good night Fluttershy.
commas after first "yes" and "night"?
Rarity’s purple eyes stared at the piles of ash and then back at the book.
blue (of some sort), not purple
head emerged. Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards
three spaces after period
Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards Stygius and Psychoshy.
away as a third slime pony began to coalesce
rather dealt with more slime ponies.
"slimepony"/"slimeponies" (outnumber 11 to 5 overall)
The bullets stared to chew through the metal and sent
"started"
The bullets stared to chew through the metal and sent a few splatters of goo falling into the mess below, but more was still vomiting onto the catwalk. I swung the sword and shoved the slimepony in front of me with my telekinesis in futility, being forced steadily back. Finally, there was a resounding crack as the corroded pipe split, sending the stream of goop splashing into the frothing mess below.
This is very noticeably repetitive. Maybe change up the second bit a little? For instance, "ejecting the stream of goop to the froth below"? I don't know.
walls towards us. Shears rode the floating robot’s
pipe along the roof. The helmet of his armor was hissing
he passed by without complaint. The huge slime
only one space after period
Lacunae lifted Graves, Xanthe and Silver Spoon as she floated up.
comma after "Xanthe"
Psychoshy flew ungainly upwards, her wings weighed down by the bulky suit with Stygius at her side, the two of them together struggling to raise Shears.
It looks like one, but "ungainly" isn't an adverb but an adjective. Maybe replace with something like "awkwardly," "clumsily," or "waveringly."
Lacunae touched her horn to the raw burns on Stygius’ face.
"Stygius's"
Shears’ great plan had clearly
"Shears's"
I turned to stare at the tiny porcelain box with two dancing figurines slowly turning above it. Hush now, Quiet Now... I licked my lips, staring at it in apprehension.
If those are the song lyrics, only "Hush" should be capitalized. If it's meant as the song title, the first "now" should be capitalized as well as the other words.
“Why not! What the fuck are they going to do? Rock at me?” The yellow pegasus yelled.
should have only one space after quotation, "The" shouldn't be capitalized.
I flew clear through the shelf, sending splinters of wood everywhere, crashed through the next, and landed in a heap. I struggled to keep conscious, trying to shake off the disorientation. Blood trickled out my nostrils and ears as I lay there in a heap.
I suggest replacing the second "in a heap" with a synonym or cutting it entirely.
grip. the crimson cloth unfurled,
"the" should be capitalized
- Other Chapter Editing:
- 44:
“Professor Goldy! I got to go to the bathroom!” Rampage whined, the striped filly hopping about with her hindlegs crossed as we scrambled along the floor of the canyon.
“Professor Goldy!” Rampage whined as she hopped in place, screwing up her face.
"Goldie"
44:
Rampage bit my mane and dragged me out as the smooze began to form into a slime pony.
"slimepony" (outnumber 11 to 5 overall)
55:
I wondered who the 'Neverenders' had been and how they'd been replaced by the 'Hells Ponies.'
period to outside of quotation marks?
57:
The... ‘slime ponies’ have also taken to walking out of the crater, and we’ve had to maintain a constant vigil to keep them from straying close.
"slimeponies", maybe. It works this way as an alternative pronunciation.
63:
“That’s why you can’t heal, daddy. You have enervation rings inside you.”
“What if I cast this spell?” she asked, tapping the enervation spike.
"Enervation"
66:
“You’re a hornhead. I don’t suppose you can read memories like a MoM Pink?”
should be "M.o.M." Also,
out that if the medallions protected a pony of enervation, the moonstone within
"Enervation"
@Dutcher below: No problem. It's not like you could have known, and the connection between the two was tenuous at best anyway. I wasn't exactly in the middle of a thought.
Last edited by Icy Shake on Mon May 19, 2014 8:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Dutcher Mon May 19, 2014 8:00 pm
Sorry for interrupting Icy Shake.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by O. Hinds Mon May 19, 2014 11:47 pm
:DIcy Shake wrote:Last point, I finally understood what Stygius is: he's the Flash Sentry/Brad of Project Horizons. Only I like him, and not Brad.
Ah, thank you very much as always.Icy Shake wrote:Had to split it up due to maximum post length. Didn't know that was a thing here.
- Chapter Forty Six Running Thoughts:
“Yeah. And like I said, I was just down in the Mortuary,” I said in a rush. “I swear, I didn’t do it!” Now I was going to have to prove my innocence! Maybe bust out of jail! Could I handle a jailbreak? Oh sweet Celestia, please don’t tell me I’d have to kill ghouls to get out of here. I liked ghouls!
Hi, Littlepip in Tenpony reference!
She sighed and moved closer to the body. “Sorry, ‘Lip.” And then she started pressing on the corpse’s ribs. There was a dry, crunchy noise as Tulip’s side depressed. “Busted ribs.” Willow carefully removed the saturated clothing to reveal two dark, round distortions. “Hoofkicks. Somepony knocked Tulip right off her hooves.”
“Like an applebuck,” I remarked, drawing a look. It might have been approval, but with a mare like Willow, how could you tell?
Now that it's here, I wonder just how much training 99 security got in forensic investigation. In any case, it's nice Blackjack can at least throw some on-point commentary out.
“But more folks want the chance to trade and to pretend like we’re normal, so they’ll let every freakshow into this place.” She shot a pointed look at my mechanical legs.
I popped out a finger and scratched out a booger, making her squirm in disgust when I flicked it away with a grin. Freakshow that, Willow.
well, that's one way to respond to that hostility. Fits Blackjack, though.
“And then the Angel dies in custody!” she spat, stomping her forehooves in rage.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, and got a glare in response.
“That’s exactly what my fucking superiors said!” she snarled, jabbing her hoof at me. “But she was killed in custody and I don’t care if it was the Angel of Death or Princess Celestia; a crime is a crime! Then I dug some more and found out there was a whole slew of ponies killed in Hightower. No investigations. No nothing. Others had gotten hit by some sort of mind-sapping magic attack -- all fatal. And nopony was investigating! Somepony was covering it up, but I had no idea who.”
And now we're getting a little more meat on the bones of what was going on with Rumble when Rarity visited him in Happyhorn.
She snorted, looking back at the body. “Softheart snapped. Couldn’t take it. Maybe it was her injuries or something, but she couldn’t let it go. Said she could feel the Angel inside her. Woke up in her daughter’s room with a knife. Finally jumped in front of a subway train. Suicide. Case… fucking… closed.”
And we've seen both the Angel and Softheart in Rampage by now, so there's a pretty suggestive thread connecting them at this point, which of course further show's it's all in Softheart's head, but that doesn't mean she isn't right.
I looked at the skeptical ghoul and then smiled. “Because you have questions about the things that happened in Hightower. Niggling little things you want to know. Even if the answers don’t matter, you still want them.”
She glared at me for a long moment before she snorted, “Not that bad. Now get out of my mane. I need to get Tulip cremated and tell his mayorship to clean up the mess.” I felt like she’d slugged me. Mysteries! Potential answers! How could she pass that up?
Remember that thing about "it's not always about you, Blackjack"? There's the closely related point "everyone doesn't share your priorities."
“And Blackjack,” she called after me. I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the ghoul as she added grimly, “Keep your eyes out for somepony that can crush a skull with one blow.”
Possible misdirection to Rampage, but of course part of the problem here is that it doesn't fit the Angel's M.O. of strangulation, and the timing might be difficult, and Blackjack didn't notice a bunch of blood splatter on Rampage. That said, the chance to go after someone on Willow's home turf would be appealing to someone who had gone after her other investigator's child.
I wasn’t sure what the S.W.A.T. spray-painted out had stood for, though. ‘Security Whines A Ton’?
Well, she does like her S Ws & Ts.
As I trotted out of the bathroom, I turned my thoughts again to the task ahead. If I was going into Hightower, I’d need a strong team. Rampage, Lacunae, and Stygius were solid. Psychoshy might have conflicts, but I was pretty sure she’d follow him. That wasn’t quite enough though. At the very least I’d need somepony who knew the layout of the prison. Somepony who could deal with robots and turrets. Somepony who could keep us all alive. Somepony good with locks. Shears was an unknown; I hoped he had some combat skills.
And we enter heist-movie mode. Step: getting the team of specialists together.
I was halfway to the Afterlife club when I heard shouts coming from the front of the hospital. “Get out of here! You’re not welcome, Stripe!” I heard somepony bellow. “No Remnants here! Step off!”
I started towards the entrance when I heard a familiar mare cry out, “Oh Maiden of the Stars, why have you cursed me so!? I beg you, return and finish me off! End my torment!”
Yay! My favorite zebra is back!
I finally returned to a tunnel where I discovered that poor filly battered within an inch of her life,” she said with a shake of her head. Returned? I started to ask... then I wanted to ask about Boing’s injuries... then I felt really guilty and shut up, so she went on,
Too bad she didn't ask. That may have been able to clear up some stuff, considering it was a Four Stars tunnel.
“So I heard you unkilled a foal. How’d you pull that one off?” Psychoshy asked me. Then she noticed Xanthe and began sizing the zebra up as if trying to think of some sort of cutting remark, but upon seeing the terrified look in Xanthe’s eyes, she turned back to me with a clear ‘You’re not worth the effort’ snort.
Yeah, going after Xanthe does seem setting your sights pretty low.
“Well, aren’t you a hero,” the yellow pegasus said sarcastically to the zebra. Then she glanced over at Stygius, saw his disapproval, and blinked and forced a grin. “I mean, way to go!” Stygius just sighed and looked away. Psychoshy’s grimace melted into a worried, uncertain frown.
The power of disapproving looks. And it's sort of like he's stepping in to Rampage's role a bit here, in that he's working to keep Psychoshy in line.
We all shared a look and then looked back at the zebra, who suddenly seemed apprehensive. “You know about balefire bombs and rockets?” I asked.
“Well, I… it’s not my specialty at all. But… yes.” She looked nervously at her hooves, tapping them together. “That actually isn’t a rocket at all; it’s a missile that was fired from Dawn Bay. Shorter range, flat flight path, and more difficult to intercept.”
“Propoli and their toys,” Rampage muttered, rolling her eyes.
Okay, so jet engine powered cruise missile is what it sounds like. And some hints about Xanthe's background I believe, with the tribe that dealt with bombs.
I sighed, then smiled and patted Xanthe’s shoulder. “Right! You’re coming with us. You’re our resident balefire missile specialist.”
“Huh?” Xanthe blinked. “But I… I can’t… I mean… shouldn’t… I mean…” I just smiled at her as she stammered on for a minute or two and then said in a whimper, “I’m the most cursed zebra ever.”
“Yup,” I said as I put a hoof around her shoulder.
Now, it's true that Blackjack just volunteered Xanthe. But bear in mind that Xanthe gave at most a cursory, halfhearted protest before acceding to the pland, and it was all out in the open without any deception. Of course I can't say for sure, but I think it's pretty likely Blackjack would have let her back out if she really tried to not take part. This is a very important contrast with some stuff later that I've never really gotten over.
For the first time since I’d seen alicorns, I saw one that didn’t look like some cheap knockoff of Luna or Celestia. The golden silk dress with burgundy panels she wore was what I imagined a sunset should look like. Her brushed and curled mane seemed to blow in that ghostly wind. The traces of lip gloss and the golden glitter in the corners of her eyes gave off just the right sparkle. Burgundy ribbons and the gold wire that I’d traded to Tulip had been woven around her hooves. They’d even fashioned a tiara for her from the wire. The collected ghouls stared on in joy as she stood there before us all. If Celestia were the sun and Luna the moon, Lacunae could be sunrise and sunset.
Great description there, and that doesn't sound too far off from what Twilight wore at her coronation.
“I see,” she said with a gentle smile at the surrounding ghouls. “Well, I wish to thank you all for your kindness. It really is a lovely dress.”
Velvet just blushed. “Well, it’s nice to make something special,” she said with a little sniff as she looked up at the mare. The ghouls nodded, and a few even seemed to give little bows towards the alicorn. “Please. Take it. I always dreamed of making something for royalty. I think every seamstress does. You’re as close as I’m ever going to get.”
This is one of the few times I've felt very positive about Twilight becoming a princess. It makes this all the more bittersweet.
Opposite them were Willow and Windclop, talking to each other in low voices. Carrion lurked in the corner along with Ahuizotl, who looked much too happy about this. The far end of the table was occupied by the ragged form of Mr. Shears.
“Ah, welcome. I’m glad you decided to quit playing dressup and join us,” Shears rasped.
“Right,” I said as I looked around at the assembled people. “We’re all here because we’re going to do the impossible: break into Hightower. I know it’s an irradiated fortress filled with automated defenses, feral glowing ghouls, deadly radiation, and soul sapping Enervation, but working together, I know that we can get in, get what we need done, and get out again. If anyone wants to quit, now’s the time to back out.”
What's Willow doing there?
“What I’m looking for is in the attic,” he said, his filmy eyes peering into my own over the rag covering his face. “It’s right next door to the broadcast center on the top floor, so it shouldn’t be that much of a problem.” From everypony else, the response was just shrugs, but I remembered what Razorwire had told me the first time we’d met. ‘Took me up to the attic. Put a bullet in my head.’ And then, as if reading my mind, Shears said, “I’ve been waiting an eternity to get up there.”
. . . I see what you did there.
It must have shown on my face, because Shears snorted, then dug out some .308 shell casings and tossed them on the conference table. “Please. I’ve taken steps for that. These talismans will ward off the Enervation for several hours. I suggest you not lose them, or you’ll get an intimate lesson in what happened to everypony in the Core.”
And now we know just what those are: filled with moonstone. I'm not sure it really makes sense to call them "talismans," but then he could just be simplifying or covering up.
“You don’t. That talisman is the product of ancient zebra magic. If it doesn’t work, you’ll find out quite quickly.”
Looks like covering up. Though I suppose it could be true. Then again, if it were moonstone then he wouldn't need to make the point about "several hours," and could probalby pitch it as more of a sure thing.
“Well…” I slowly looked at all of them. “Depending on how much radiation Lacunae’s got sucked up… I might know a pony who they will listen to.”
grrr
Everypony with a pulse besides Rampage and Lacunae had a half dozen dozes of Rad-X and Rad-Away; I’d raided Bonesaw at Megamart, since I was in the area.
Hasn't Rampage gotten all mutated up before? Or was that on Flux?
Nurse Graves looked back with a worried frown. “Are you sure about bringing her?”
“What?” I asked with a grin. “She’s coming along, isn’t she? She’s happy to help her friend.”
The ghoul frowned, and my smile slipped a little. “But does she understand what we’re doing here?” the nurse asked.
“She understands enough. I know she’s not all there, but she’s our best chance for getting through the ghouls without getting torn to pieces.”
No, no, I'm not really sure she does. And though this is at heart the same tactic used in the Boneyard itself, the circumstances have changed considerably.
She still didn’t look very happy about my choice, but answered, “It’s… hard to explain. It’s like there’s a thing inside you that’s you. Like a tiny guttering flame. If you’re careful and protect it, then you can remember who you are. But if it goes out…” She shook her head. “Wheelbarrow believes there’s some life magic in the living that keeps that flame protected. Like… glue. But in ghouls it’s much weaker.”
“It’s your soul,” Mr. Shears said from the middle of the group. “A pony can continue living so long as they have the tiniest fragment of their soul. Without it, we’re mindless animals at best. We might have a brain, but we would have no will to suppress our aggressive urges.” His cloudy eyes glanced behind us. “Retaining one’s soul is easier when you are alive because your living flesh has a strong natural bond with your spirit.”
Well, that wasn't so hard to explain. Yay, science! Also, of course, more detail on how souls work is always welcome.
There was only one pony who wasn’t getting attacked. One who was squinting at a rancid advertisement for mane curlers, oblivious to the battle. I took a deep breath and bellowed as loudly as I could, “Spoon!”
The glowing gray ghoul looked up, blinking her luminescent green eyes from behind her deformed spectacle frames. “Oh! Sorry! Coming!” she yelled as she trotted towards the fight. The glowing gray mare snorted at the ferals. “Hey! Stop that! Get off them right now!” she said as she trotted into the middle of them. “If you don’t stop fighting, I’m going to report you to Pinkie Pie!” The ghostly green light emanating from within her seemed to brighten, and the ferals hissed and slowly backed away. She nodded primly. “There. Knew that’d get them to behave.”
This was the reason she was brought along. Why was the reaction time on getting her involved so slow? In-universe, not on the level of wanting a fight scene since it's been half a chapter without one.
“Are you sure everything’s okay, Tiara? I mean, you’re like being totally nice. It’s weird.” I got the impression that Diamond Tiara hadn’t been the most pleasant of ponies to be around.
“Yeah. Sure. I’m just glad you’re helping me get back into my office. It was so embarrassing to be locked out.” I grinned sheepishly, and Silver Spoon nodded slowly with sympathy.
“It’s okay. I’m so glad to be able to, like, do anything with you! The M.o.M. has been such a total nightmare since Goldenblood was replaced.”
I'm not comfortable with this. Though I am interested in the nighmare after Goldie's ouster.
“So, Quartz calls the shots then?” I asked as I glanced at the others, who looked a tad impatient.
“Oh it’s nothing that direct. Like, whenever Pinkie Pie orders all the ‘bad ponies’ in Equestria to be arrested, we look at Quartz two minutes after Pinkie leaves the room, and she nods or shakes her head… usually shakes… and we just stall till Pinkie Pie gets distracted by something else.” She rolled her eyes. “If it weren’t for Pumpkin and Pound, I think they would have cut her out completely, but those two can usually handle her when she’s raving.”
Couldn't have needed to stall that long. And these little looks into the internals of some of the ministries are nice background.
Silver Spoon sighed and rolled her glowing eyes. “Oh, business as usual in the party sectors, but totally a mess in the law enforcement branch. I mean, Quartz is still there, but she doesn’t seem to know what’s going on anymore. I mean, she seemed to be really close and devoted to Goldenblood, so maybe she’s just hanging in there while Horse settles in. I dunno. No pony does...” I wondered if Horse even knew what Quartz did at the M.o.M.
Let's see. No, it does seem like Horse knew her job was holding Pinkie in line, especially for the law enforcement branch. So maybe she was just broken up over Goldenblood's departure, or Pinkie feeling emboldened, or just pushing harder because she knew Quartz was a "nogood terrible bad pony."
Unseal Project Eternity: Y/N?
Project Eternity. The search for eternal life. I looked at Mr. Shears; his glossy white eyes seemed to drink in the words on the terminal screen. “This is what you’re after?”
The question made him balk. “What? No. That’s simply history. You probably have far more interest in that than I do.” His annoyance seemed so sincere that if he was playing me, he’d probably been a performer in another life.
Well, he did have a thing for one as a kid.
The parasprites went black and tumbled down around the large book that was bound in what looked unsettlingly like darkened zebra hide.
Come on, you've never freaked out over parchment before, and just earlier this chapter you were thinking with some interest whether the ghouls would have dressed Lacunae in lace or leather. And let's not forget the dragon hide jacket you just got.
Rarity stared raptly at the text. “Soul silk?” she whispered, taking a step back from the table. Then suddenly she narrowed her eyes and glared. “I don’t know who you are or what you are, but I know when somepony… er… book… is trying to play me for a fool!”
I love Rarity being dramatic.
But though she glared at the book, there before her eyes was what she wanted. Her magic slammed the book shut with all its force. “You might have killed my poor parasprites, but we’ll see how you do when Twilight gets her hooves on you.” She picked up the phone and stared to dial, then paused and looked back at the book. Little beads of sweat popped from her brow. “Now Rarity, just look at it! It’s clearly a wicked thing! I mean, it’s made from a zebra! How grotesque!” She continued dialling, but more slowly now, her eyes drawn back to the horrible text.
Again, I'm pretty sure you've regularly used parchment. Is it that it's zebra? If so, what was all the other parchment? Dog, cat? There aren't so many kinds of dumb animal to get hide from, after all.
She slowly pressed the receiver to her ear. “No no, Twilight. It’s Rarity. I just…” She paused, and her eyes turned concerned once more. “Twilight… I… yes, I know. I’m sorry. I know… Oh Twilight, please don’t cry.” Rarity curled a little around the phone, her eyes returning to the closed book. “Yes… yes… I know… when I imagine it being one of you…” Rarity sniffed and scrubbed a tear from her eye. “Yes… I know. Try… try to get some sleep. Ask for some time off if you need it. And if Luna doesn’t like it, tell her to take over the M.A.S. herself.”
Rarity’s eyes lingered on the dark tome one last time, then said in low tones, as if afraid the book might hear, “I might need your help. Nothing major… certainly nothing that needs to involve Goldenblood. Just need… some friendly advice. Right… good. Please take care of yourself, Twilight.”
The receiver returned to the cradle, and she stared at the book for the longest time, biting her hoof. Finally, she approached it as if it were a snake. “Well… it wouldn’t hurt to know the details…” she murmured as she carefully straightened the book and opened it slowly once more.
Even though it didn't last very long, the two calls, as clearly wearying and difficult as they were showed that it did take some real pressure to overcome Rarity's resistance to using the book.
They’d nearly gotten completely across when one of the pipes gave a sharp bang overhead and fluid the consistency of fecal matter began to dribble from it and pile up on the catwalk. I stared in horror as the bluish heap began to lunge up and wiggle. It thrust out two hooves towards me and a dripping equine head emerged. Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards Stygius and Psychoshy.
. . .
“Carrion! Lacunae! Blast that pipe!” I shouted, pointing with my sword further down the corroded span.
***twilightversusnewpaper***
***pro tip don't do that***
Finally, there was a resounding crack as the corroded pipe split, sending the stream of goop splashing into the frothing mess below. “Lacunae, clear the way!” I bellowed as I gave ground.
Mhmm. Because that's a lot better than a smaller, constant amount coming out in a known location.
“Like, I think that this place totally needs a major inspection! Somepony isn’t doing their job at all, Tiara!” Spoon yelled as she raced across with Nurse Graves.
You tell 'em! This isn't up to standard at all!
There are reasons this was, I think, the first fic to make me like Silver Spoon.
“Like… I wanna go home. I wanna go home right now, Tiara!” came a call from above.
*Looking disapprovingly at Blackjack*
The huge slime head was starting to rear again as Lacunae landed.
Shears got the door open, and the group funneled through into the next room as Lacunae stood majestically before the immense head of slime. “You! Shall! Not! Hurt! My! Friends!” she shouted as her eyes glowed with power. Each word was punctuated by an arrow of furious silver magic that exploded on impact, blasting out huge gobs of the monster’s mass. It still came on, more and more goop surging towards the alicorn.
Not quite her first "You shall not pass!" but close. And this time, I believe she is actually on a bridge. Well, catwalk.
“Tiara! What is going on?” Silver Spoon asked, staring at me through her blackened frames.
“Not now, Silver Spoon.”
I hate to admit it, but Blackjack's right. Better give the answer soon, though.
“Yeah. Besides, what could we have done if we had known? Bring a couple tons of gelatin?” I gave a weak grin to the others. Most of them looked decidedly unamused, but Rampage didn’t let me down.
Smirking back at me, she tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Acidic pony gelatin monsters. Delicious as they are jiggly.” That got a few more nervous smiles.
I like it. I'd like to think they'd end up as gelatinous cubes. Also, more talk about eating animal products.
“So, now that we’re past the… um… Slime... Ooze...”
“Smooze?” Xanthe suggested, and every eye turned to her. She dropped her eyes sheepishly. “Sorry…”
You should be. Go stand in the corner!—No, no, don't go. Don't cry! It was a fine pun, and you didn't know. It's okay.
Silver Spoon looked positively spooked as she sat down. I chewed on my lip. When I’d remembered the ghoul and how she mistook me for her friend, using her to get past the ferals seemed innocuous. But even she was realizing something was wrong now.
And Blackjack is still missing the point that just the fact she's realizing something is wrong isn't the real problem.
“Tiara! Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on? You found my glasses, but… but everything seems wrong. It doesn’t make sense.” She gave a nervous little smile. “It’s a joke, right? A joke on those blank flanks, right?” Her voice cracked as she reached up to touch her glass-streaked face. I just looked at her shamefully as she begged, “Please tell me it’s all a joke?”
I wanted to smile. I’d planned on smiling. Get through Hightower and leave her with the other ghouls in Meatlocker. Use her… damn it
Yep. Now she's starting to see.
“Blackjack, what’s going on? Why does she keep calling you Tiara?” Rampage asked in a low voice.
“‘Cause, like, that’s her name! Duh…” Silver Spoon said with a little snort. “Tiara, why does Twist keep calling you Blackjack?” She gave a long stare at my corroded metal legs and the little pits the slime had eaten into the steel. Her eyes met mine as they slowly widened. “It’s a joke. Please… it’s a joke!”
And now I'd really like to see some anger and a "What the hell!?" from Rampage. I know it's not as personal for her as, say, Boing, but I just need someone on the inside to call this out.
“Something bad happened, didn’t it? Like, something really bad?” Silver Spoon sobbed as she hugged her head. “I… I think it did but whenever I think about it…” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head hard. “I just wanted to find Tiara! She… she could tell me what to do. She always told everypony what to do.” She sniffed and rubbed her nose. “She’s, like, my only friend, and I’m hers. She totally needs me…”
Tearing up a bit now. Come to think of it, this is the second day in a row I've read some good—and sympathetic—Silver Spoon.
“I’m really sorry for misleading you,” I said, a touch defensively. I had asked her to help. She just hadn’t realized what was going on. “But I did really need your help. And… I didn’t want to just leave you behind in those tunnels.”
No, Blackjack, you don't get to be defensive here! This wasn't okay, and the fact you wanted to get through it without her ever realizing you were lying to her suggest you knew it!
“I really hate to break up this latest installment of ‘What the fuck, Blackjack,’ but four of us are slowly dying here,” Rampage said with a snort at me.
And Rampage comes through for me! Too bad it's muted and abbreviated since four of them are dying, but I'll take what I can get!
“The problem is that your idea hurt somepony who didn’t deserve it. In the scale of Wasteland crimes, it was probably around the level of littering. But you set such a high standard for yourself in the eyes of others that when you slip, it seems so much worse. Most ponies in the Wasteland would simply kill Silver Spoon. You tricked her. Pretty nice for the Wasteland. Pretty horrible for Blackjack.”
I guess that pretty much sums it up. But it's not a good line of thinking for Blackjack to have, that she can deceive others into helping her just because she needs it. And I have a feeling that P-21 in particular would have been very unhappy about this—using others is something he takes very personally.
I sighed as I followed along behind everypony else, “So what do I do about it?”
“Getting her out of here alive would be a good start,” the alicorn said, patting me on the head like I was a filly.
Aww . . .
“You are correct. One of the first things Project Eternity attempted was to create soul jars. The idea was simple: make armor, or even clothing, turn it into a soul jar… and be protected from all harm.” He licked his lips with a cracked, boiled tongue. “That was the idea. The reality was far different. Far more disturbing. The project was a failure, and those failures were locked away down here. They were too unpredictable to move.”
More history of Eternity. It's really one of the more interesting projects.
He kept his eyes straight. “I thought this would be so much… different.”
Well, that was reassuring. “Me too, but… welcome to Hoofington,” I muttered. “Don’t forget your complimentary bag of suck.”
“It’s easy to blame Hoofington, the Wasteland, and long dead ponies. Far easier than blaming ourselves.” He turned towards the others, saying to me, “I don’t know what we’ll find, but I doubt it will be peaceful.” Then he trotted back to tell them he’d found another way out of the basement.
Well, in fairness, she can much better blame the city, the Wasteland, and dead ponies than Snips can. You know, since she didn't have a role in creating the situation.
‘Click click click’ went my radiation meter. No time to waste. “Okay... be ready for... anything. Don’t touch anything.”
It's like the Cave of Wonders, only with radiation instead of fire and lava, and it's present even before you touch anything!
“We experimented on all these objects. First we tried using animal souls. Then some volunteers. Mules. Poor ponies that wouldn’t be missed. But necromancy was an unknown art. Twilight and Celestia both disagreed with Rarity about it, so she went to Goldenblood behind their backs.
Celestia? Why would she get a say?
“Twilight Sparkle. I wish she could have understood. I wanted to be able to do this with her. But after Celestia’s examination of my little guidebook here, she was adamantly against it.”
Oh, right. That incident. Also, hypocrite.
Behind us, a music box began to play. I knew the melody perfectly; my mane stood on end as I turned to stare at the tiny porcelain box with two dancing figurines slowly turning above it. Hush now, Quiet Now... I licked my lips, staring at it in apprehension. “Okay. Who turned that on?” No one spoke. My magic glowed and I turned the little lever at the side to off.
It didn’t turn off. It began to scream; not a scream like I could hear with my ears. This was like the wail of Enervation; the hysterical scream was in my head. Toys rocked. Books fluttered their pages. Dozens of voices babbled all at once.
Now that's some good atmosphere, and a nice callback to the song.
Suddenly a swath of silk shot off the shelf and coiled once around her throat, once around a metal support beam, and yanked tight. The pegasus went silent, eyes bulging as her hooves clawed at the silk swath. Her legs lifted up, kicking out at the air as she struggled to get free. Rampage moved up on one side, ripping at the silk with her hoofclaws in a desperate attempt to try and cut through it. An umbrella opened, rolled to face me, then closed with a snap, launching itself and plunging into my neck. I gasped and fell back against the shelf, blood spurting from the hole as the umbrella thrashed wildly.
I wasn’t the only one in trouble. Carrion had a teddy bear latched onto his face that seemed to be trying to crush his skull. Xanthe curled up in a ball as four floating boots slammed and stomped on her. A cowpony hat had forced itself over Nurse Graves’s head and seemed to be trying to twist it completely off. Meanwhile, a floating screwdriver was doing its best to try and take Cerberus apart as it dodged and stabbed and spun. One of Cerberus’s eyes popped free, dangling by a cable. “Oh, you are going to pay for that, you subversive tool of zebra domination!”
I love this as a great example of horrifying mixed with hilarity. Also, it's clearly symbolic of how consumerist materialism has sapped the soul of Western culture while simultaneously leading on the path to its physical destruction. /pomposity /sarcasm
I rose, moving to try and help Psychoshy, when one of her powerhooves lashed out and blasted me straight in the face. I flew clear through the shelf, sending splinters of wood everywhere, crashed through the next, and landed in a heap. I struggled to keep conscious, trying to shake off the disorientation. Blood trickled out my nostrils and ears as I lay there in a heap. Well, at least she hadn’t shot me!
In fairness, it's not like she carries a gun, or you gave her one.
Then I saw a suit of strange light recon barding slip off a shelf. It trotted towards me, limp and swaying as if caught in a wind. I struggled to rise, but it didn’t attack. I slowly lifted my head towards it, and it pointed its sleeve towards the corner of the room.
Hi, Stealthsuit!
I looked over at where Stygius was trying to flicker flash away, disappearing and reappearing in place. It was clear that he couldn’t take Psychoshy with him. His own teleportation, while functional in the dampening field, wasn’t like Lacunae’s.
Okay, we've had Lacunae forgetting about the dampening field, Blackjack trying to use her shotgun against the Smooze, and now Stygius forgetting how his own power works. There's been a lot of desperation here.
“Good thing you’re already ugly!” the mare shouted as she charged and smashed her hoof into his face with a crunching sound. His deformed features twisted grotesquely as Rampage hooked her claws around the bear and pulled. With a grind of bone and a ripping of skin and feathers, she pulled the teddy bear free. It struggled, wiggling its ghoul-eye-gunk-covered plush arms at her as its mouth opened and closed silently, but a ghostly voice screamed in rage in my mind.
Eugh. I think Carrion wins for worst experience in that room.
Xanthe lifted her forehooves to run, and the boots attacking her suddenly reversed, putting themselves on the ends of her forelegs. “Oh no...” she whimpered as they yanked her up, and the other two jammed themselves on her back legs. “Help me!” she screamed as the boots yanked her to her hooves and send her galloping straight at a solid cinder block wall!
Classic. Well, what I'd normally think of is them forcing her to dance indefinitely, but close enough.
I dropped into S.A.T.S., targeted her closest hoof, and said a little prayer to Celestia that I wasn’t about to make her a stub.
Interesting that S.A.T.S. works but not EFS.
The spell executed a single stroke that bit into the boot’s leather. A moment later I heard a sharp cry from the boot as the leather parted in a gash a few inches long, and instantly all four boots jerked off her legs and scampered towards the far side of the storage room.
And, to perhaps some surprise, we find the vulnerability of soul jars to starmetal.
The red scarf stopped trying to choke Stygius and instead looped itself around the next closest pony, wrapping itself around her neck and crushing her throat!
Nurse Graves gave a slightly annoyed look at the silk around her neck and trotted in the direction of the corner of the room.
Nice little joke there.
I looked at Nurse Graves and the silk swath that was trying to choke her to death. “You know, that’s not going to work. She doesn’t need to breathe.” The ends of the scarf seemed to flutter in frustration. Nurse Graves looked at me coolly, arching her brow as her neck indented. I floated the sword towards the silk. “Now, let her go or we’ll find out just how sharp my sword really is.”
The silk released her and floated in the air a moment.
And then coiled tightly around the handle of my blade!
With a great wrench, it pulled the blade around and began to slice wildly at us.
Blackjack can now add accessories to the list of things she's been burned by being merciful to.
Then the blade began slipping through my grip.
“My magic can’t get a grip on it!” Shears shouted. “That sword wants to kill!”
Yep. And that, along with the fact that it's made from the Eater of Souls, is why I don't think that "The Starmetal Sword Chronicles" (cute as it is) really fits well. The characterization just doesn't match.
“Are you okay?” I asked, feeling slightly odd talking to a suit. What counted as ‘okay’ to a soul jar suit of barding?
It reached down to a small speaker on its belt and there was a hiss, and then an synthetic mare’s voice said, “Combat ended. No healing or chems needed.”
“Oh, you can talk?” I asked, and the suit shook its head.
“That’s all. You’re my best friend forever. Sneaking now, shhhhhh,” the suit said seemingly at random. Xanthe slowly crept closer to get a better look.
“Oh, you can only say things that suit has programed into it?” I asked, and the collar of the suit went up and down as if nodding.
Aww. This chapter has a surprising number of really cute characters, between the return of Xanthe and Silver Spoon and the introduction of Stealthsuit.
“We didn’t remove her from it.” Shears glanced at the infiltration suit, and it shrank back. “Naturally, the zebras were curious about what we were doing here. But one, at least, never reported back. Rarity, of course, always the designer, attempted some modifications to her suit,” he said as he rose to his hooves, looking at the other display cases. “But this was Eternity’s first failure. The soul armor. Creating invulnerable, eternally powerful armor with a complete soul bound within.” He looked at the armor with disappointment. “We assumed that, without a mind, a soul was just... a thing. Something special that made a pony a pony, or a griffin a griffin. When we transferred a complete soul to an object, however, it began to manifest... peculiar powers. Even brushing a soul could bestow strange effects on the tool.” He looked back at me. “Worse, the soul within could affect the mind of the wearer.”
And now Octavia starts to make more sense, and it's easier to see what could have happened to the series of ponies connected to Hightower who now show up in Rampage.
I heard Rarity’s voice and saw a pristine suit of combat barding on a charred corpse. “Test one... armor failed to protect from enemy flamer.” The same combat barding on an intact corpse, minus a hole through the stallion’s face. “Test two... armor failed to protect from enemy sniper.” A piece of gray combat armor with a helmet and completely intact faceplace. “Test three.... armor failed to protect from crushing blows inflicted to throat.” The same armor, this time Rarity speaking with frustration. “Test four... armor failed to protect from poisoned rations!” A lacy purple gown with veil on a pink unicorn mare with a blackened face. “Test five... armor failed to protect from being garroted by her own scarf!” A smashed and broken stallion wearing a tuxedo. “Test six! Armor failed... again... to protect from being pushed out a window!” Finally, a suit of dirty power armor. Rarity’s voice was now tired and frayed. “Test Seven... armor failed... to protect... when buried alive... in a landslide...”
Oh, perfectionism. Unicorn trait, or just a coincidence it shows up most strongly in Twilight and Rarity among the mane six?
“Hey. Tick tick, remember? Or click click click. As cool as ghouls are, I really don’t want to be one!” the yellow pegasus said.
So, what's it called when you go slumming in a graveyard?
“Wait! What about her?” Xanthe asked, gesturing to the possessed infiltration suit. “We can’t just leave her.”
I looked back at the others and then at the infiltration suit. Her? “Um... I’m not a zebra, but doesn’t possessed armor count above a 9.0 on the standard scale of curses?”
Xanthe chewed her lip a moment and cast her eyes downward. “I’ve been touched by the Star Maiden... I don’t think I can get any more cursed than that.” Then she looked at the zebra armor. “At least this way I won’t be cursed alone.”
“Well... it’s your call. But if the armor possesses you...” I said in worry. The armor had helped us get out of the other room; I wasn’t terribly worried about it being evil... but still.
“If it does, I am already damned,” she said in a near whisper. I couldn’t help myself; I gave her an impulsive hug that made the zebra go rigid. I supposed getting a hug from the most evil being in your mythology might be a little disconcerting. The poor zebra certainly looked uncomfortable as I released her. She removed the hazmat suit, and the infiltration suit immediately opened up. A minute later it zipped up completely, latching itself in place.
“You’re my new best friend,” the armor chirped, making the zebra mare actually blush. The black and white armor was just tight enough for her to pull the hazmat suit back on over it.
Xanthe is so nice!
I don't know, I mean sure, it could be alarming, worrying, but when it all has to be the second order fear that comes from thinking you're being seduced to the dark side by how nice the super evil entity is, and how much she cares . . . well, all I'm saying is unless you believe the devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he doesn't exist, the most effective form is probably going to be charismatic, caring, and sympathetic.
I think I've said it before, but Xanthe has certain characteristics in common with Littlepip and Glory.
Rampage hummed softly behind me, singing to herself, “Nothing can stop... the smooze...” I glared back at her, and she blinked then gave a grin in return.
So along with "Shoo be doo" that makes at least two G1 song references. Have there been others?
I walked to the library door and slowly pushed it open.
And stepped into Hell.
The vast central shaft of Hightower rose ten stories above me. Midway up, like a fiery dagger plunged into the heart of the structure, the missile jutted out into the middle of the space. Blue fire flew off the tip in volcanic eruptions that sprayed the sticky blue flame in glowing arcs. The unnatural blaze continued burning, no matter what it landed on, and the middle of the shaft was awash in a ring of radioactive fire. Inside every cell, blue-glowing shapes screamed and hammered against their restraints. Sentry robots rolled around the walkways, their metal bodies bent and warped by the tremendous heat.
So now we have (another?) idea of what Blackjack expects Hell to be like.
A gargantuan charred face appeared, wreathed in blue flame as it glared down at us. From a dozen loudspeakers all around us boomed a crackling voice. “Hello, convicts. I am Warden Hobble, administrator for this facility, and your host for the duration of your sentence for crimes against Equestria. I look forward to making your stay here as... comfortable... as possible.” He gave a ragged, mocking laugh. “Welcome to the Tower!”
I stared up at that immense, burning leer on the screen for a moment, and then Psychoshy muttered, “He wasn’t in the plan either...”
Hee.
- Chapter Forty Six Overall Thoughts:
Moving on, considering the chapter basically deals with waltzing into one of the worst locations this side of the Canterlot Ruins or the Core, there's a fair amount of endearing stuff going on. One thing that gets to mostly wait until later is the return of Boing, who is in fact not dead, just very badly beaten, and was rescued and brought to Meatlocker by Xanthe. Xanthe is the second endearing thing. Then there's the Stealthsuit, who appers right near the end. And finally, the return of Silver Spoon.
Xanthe mostly just gets to be really cute, doing things like bemoaning how cursed she is and wishing for Blackjack to appear and finish the job, then fainting when Blackjack shows up. But she gets a little more, too, with some interaction with Shujaa showing that she's a Propoli crafter. Later conversation shows that although it's not her specialty, she can work on a balefire bomb (also, what's lodged in Hightower isn't a rocket, but a (presumably jet powered cruise) missile fired from Dawn Bay. I believe this is setting up her background as coming from a group that handled missiles and was coerced into joining the Remnant, but I could be mistaken there. She also demonstrates she can hold her own in a fight, exhibiting some martial arts skills while fighting soul jars, even if she's not up to the level of, say, Shujaa.
Silver Spoon's return has always been a sore spot for me, despite the fact that the Hightower arc may have been the first time I ever really liked the character. Basically, it comes down to the fact that Blackjack deceived her into helping them get through the feral ghouls in the tunnels below Hightower. I believe that in very recent chapters, there may have been something Blackjack's done that I thought was worse, but there have been very few things through that point that came close, especially if you look post-Scoodle. And no, I don't really think Boing is up there in the same way, essentially because that was what I'd think of as a forced error: there was a lot pushing Blackjack in the direction that led to that, and though she bears a large portion of the blame for that, so too, I think do her friends and, frankly, nobody. There were significant psychological issues feeding into that, and at the most immediate level, killing those two ponies and almost killing Boing was an accident. This, in contrast, was putting a helpless, confused person in grave danger on purpose and on false pretenses in order to get what she wanted. Lacunae kind of downplays it, and Rampage, though clearly unhappy about it, pushes it off because they didn't have time then with a bunch of the people dying of radiation. One of the things that strikes me as especially wrong, though, is how Blackjack didn't even seem to think she did anything wrong until after things started to no longer go according to plan and the real danger kicked in, apart, anyway, from hoping Silver Spoon would just never notice the trick. And I can't help but feel that in order for her to believe that she had to think of Silver Spoon as more of a tool than a person, which despite how out of it Silver Spoon is, rather reflects a Stable 99 mentality that I'd hope Blackjack would have outgrown—especially when elsewhere in the chapter Blackjack mentions how she likes ghouls. And I suppose it's not the easiest thing to leave behind, when it's part of the bedrock of your society for most of your life, but all the same, this is something that I think would have been nixed immediately if P-21 had been there, because I think he would have seen it in a similar light.
From a plot level, what we learn is mostly related to Project Eternity. There are some flashbacks to Rarity, first being given the soul jar spell by the black book after resisting its allure, being worn down by the plight of Fluttershy and Twilight in the wake of Big Mac's death. Then there's her with Snips and Snails, performing the ritual on Petunia, whose whole soul is placed into a piece of silk, killing the mare. This comes around later, when Blackjack uses this knowledge to get her to stop attacking, saying that she wasn't the one who killed her and that killing her wouldn't bring her back or help her, then imploring her to show that she had once been a good pony, and to be one now. Then there's a scene of Rarity testing her soul armor, and rejecting each as failures as they fail to protect the wearer in increasingly ridiculous test cases, often ones where armor woudn't be expected to help anyway. There's also discussion with Snips, who gives some of the history and properties of the project and its products, including how things infused with or touched by souls tended to take on a life of their own and would influence those who used them. Basically, lots of stuff slowly filling in the maze pointing towards Rampage. Who, incidentally, never seems to take an interest in these conversations about pony immortality, a phrase that was directly used in her hearing. But that'll probably be dealt with later.
From an action perspective, there was some pretty good stuff, particularly the Smooze—the unstoppable acidic goo ponies and liquid mass—and the room full of hostile soul jars. The fight with the feral ghouls, though in some ways interesting, was undermined by the fact that it took so long to call Silver Spoon in to do her part, which was the sole reason she was even there. I have a feeling this was done mainly because fully half a chapter had gone with no action scene at all, so the idea was to make this a bigger one than it probably should have been on the merits. Crucially, in the fight with the soul jars, we find that the starmetal sword, and thus starmetal, can harm and kill soul jars. Snips also says what I'd long suspected, namely that the sword wants to kill.
Now I'll say that Rampage, Psychoshy, and Lacunae all get some good lines, and Stygius even gets some blink-and-you'll-miss-it character development, here:
“Well, aren’t you a hero,” the yellow pegasus said sarcastically to the zebra. Then she glanced over at Stygius, saw his disapproval, and blinked and forced a grin. “I mean, way to go!” Stygius just sighed and looked away. Psychoshy’s grimace melted into a worried, uncertain frown.
by starting to be able to influence Psychoshy, however slightly and uncertainly at this time. But it's also showing that he does in fact have standards for how he wants people to act (especially his romantic partner), and this lends a bit more credence to his noble posturing. After all, I bet what Xanthe did and Psychoshy was sarcastically mocking was something Stygius would do, or at the very least something he believes he would do, in a heartbeat, because it's who he is and the role he sees himself in. Remember—heart-shaped shield cutie mark and all that. But the thing is, focus is spread too thin. At this point, let's see if I can offhand name everyone in the Hightower party: Blackjack, Lacunae, Stygius, Psychoshy, Rampage, Snips, Nurse Graves, Carrion, the robot—C something—Cerberus!, Silver Spoon. So that's ten, and I may have been missing someone, but I know there were fewer than twelve because that was brought up at one point. Point is, that leaves many characters not getting much focus, and some of them just sort of disappearing from time to time. It's not the worst thing, but it's there, helped somewhat by how little Carrion seems to do anything anyway and how it's often been Lacunae's habit to stick to the background.
So yeah, fair amount to like about the chapter, but it's also not the best paced and raiksed some anger in me directed at Blackjack, which on balance is probaly a good thing, since although her treatment of Silver Spoon is something I hope and wish she'd never do, it is something that can make sense coming from her and can serve as an important milestone in her story, a vital lesson about trust and using others. Too bad it's kind of a generalization of the 99 story, but it's something she needs to be able to remember without the benefit of P-21 around to remind her.
- Chapter Forty Six Editing:
three spaces after period
“She might have been coming to deliver your barding and came across something worth killing over.”
I think "came" should be "come" on the basis that it's probably still working with the "might have"
Would have quit, but.. hrmph, what else was I going to do?”
ellipsis needs third dot
there were lots of old grudges against Zebrakind in Meatlocker.
"Zebrakind" shouldn't be capitalized
smile along with a tiny nod. Rampage looked at
the whole planning thing. I sighed as I rose
bows towards the alicorn. “Please
only one space after period
And so long as the Goddess feels misery, doubt, and self recrimination,
I think "self recrimination" should be hyphenated
“Ah, welcome. I’m glad you decided to quit playing dressup and join us,” Shears rasped.
I think "dressup" should either be hyphenated or have a space
“On the ground floor are the cafeteria, gymnasium, library and classrooms.”
comma after "library"
Patients and staff who were trapped there…. We didn’t have
ellipsis should have only three dots
Nurse Graves continued, “In medical, there are a number of ghouls, robots, and turrets. Patients and staff who were trapped there…. We didn’t have time to use up all the medical supplies, so there’s a large stockpile we can use to purge radiation.
“The second level is a bit more problematic. The high security area has more robots and turrets. The warhead is our biggest problem. Its magic has produced ghouls of… substantial strength. And while it is there, I doubt many of the living will last long.” Mr. Shears looked at Cerberus and Xanthe. “If the robot can follow her instructions and dump the warhead out of the hole, we should be able to get up the elevator to the armory and guard station.”
I think the second paragraph is being spoken by Shears. If so, the first should end with a closing quotation mark.
from the armory. Fortunately, we have n
three spaces after period
But somehow the thought of trying to blast our way through hundreds of ghouls had put quite a dampener on everypony’s mood.
I think it's "damper"
Take EC-1101 far and away from Hoofington and give up the idea that I would ever find out what Horizons was or what Goldenblood had planned to do with it.
Should that just be "far away"?
covered except for a small metal one marked ‘Emergency exit. Alarm will sound’. Willow pushed
it seems off for the sign to have a period for the first part but not the second; should the second period be inside the quotation marks?
her voice low and tense. “This should be
three spaces after period
None of us had any time to go to Stygius’ aid.
"Stygius's"
as she bucked, stomped and bodyslammed the ghouls with such force that some of them exploded between the wall and her armor.
comma after "stomped"
“Get yer stinkin’ hooves off me you damned dirty ghoul!” Cerberus shouted as he struggled to keep aloft with three ghouls clamped down on his limbs.
comma after "me"?
fending off their attackers. Xanthe muttered over
only one space after period
“Stand down!” I shouted as the ghouls pawed
should have only one space after quotation
“Need to frag this maggot-loving superior officer… Damn combat inhibitor!” he muttered darkly.
should have second space after ellipsis or not capitalize "Damn"
“So, Quartz calls the shots then?” I asked as I glanced at the others, who looked a tad impatient.
should have only one space after quotation
concealed in the back wall. Directly ahead was a
and nearly collapsed. My friends and the dingy
only one space after period
“Oh, no Fluttershy, I was talking to the parasprites.
comma after "no"?
“Yes Dear… yes… yes… I’m sorry you feel so rotten… yes… I know… I love you too. Right. Good night Fluttershy.
commas after first "yes" and "night"?
Rarity’s purple eyes stared at the piles of ash and then back at the book.
blue (of some sort), not purple
head emerged. Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards
three spaces after period
Then a second slime pony began to form and started shambling towards Stygius and Psychoshy.
away as a third slime pony began to coalesce
rather dealt with more slime ponies.
"slimepony"/"slimeponies" (outnumber 11 to 5 overall)
The bullets stared to chew through the metal and sent
"started"
The bullets stared to chew through the metal and sent a few splatters of goo falling into the mess below, but more was still vomiting onto the catwalk. I swung the sword and shoved the slimepony in front of me with my telekinesis in futility, being forced steadily back. Finally, there was a resounding crack as the corroded pipe split, sending the stream of goop splashing into the frothing mess below.
This is very noticeably repetitive. Maybe change up the second bit a little? For instance, "ejecting the stream of goop to the froth below"? I don't know.
walls towards us. Shears rode the floating robot’s
pipe along the roof. The helmet of his armor was hissing
he passed by without complaint. The huge slime
only one space after period
Lacunae lifted Graves, Xanthe and Silver Spoon as she floated up.
comma after "Xanthe"
Psychoshy flew ungainly upwards, her wings weighed down by the bulky suit with Stygius at her side, the two of them together struggling to raise Shears.
It looks like one, but "ungainly" isn't an adverb but an adjective. Maybe replace with something like "awkwardly," "clumsily," or "waveringly."
Lacunae touched her horn to the raw burns on Stygius’ face.
"Stygius's"
Shears’ great plan had clearly
"Shears's"
I turned to stare at the tiny porcelain box with two dancing figurines slowly turning above it. Hush now, Quiet Now... I licked my lips, staring at it in apprehension.
If those are the song lyrics, only "Hush" should be capitalized. If it's meant as the song title, the first "now" should be capitalized as well as the other words.
“Why not! What the fuck are they going to do? Rock at me?” The yellow pegasus yelled.
should have only one space after quotation, "The" shouldn't be capitalized.
I flew clear through the shelf, sending splinters of wood everywhere, crashed through the next, and landed in a heap. I struggled to keep conscious, trying to shake off the disorientation. Blood trickled out my nostrils and ears as I lay there in a heap.
I suggest replacing the second "in a heap" with a synonym or cutting it entirely.
grip. the crimson cloth unfurled,
"the" should be capitalizedOh, and because it needs to be said: Xanthe/Stealthsuit OTP!
- Other Chapter Editing:
“Professor Goldy! I got to go to the bathroom!” Rampage whined, the striped filly hopping about with her hindlegs crossed as we scrambled along the floor of the canyon.
“Professor Goldy!” Rampage whined as she hopped in place, screwing up her face.
"Goldie"
44:
Rampage bit my mane and dragged me out as the smooze began to form into a slime pony.
"slimepony" (outnumber 11 to 5 overall)
55:
I wondered who the 'Neverenders' had been and how they'd been replaced by the 'Hells Ponies.'
period to outside of quotation marks?
57:
The... ‘slime ponies’ have also taken to walking out of the crater, and we’ve had to maintain a constant vigil to keep them from straying close.
"slimeponies", maybe. It works this way as an alternative pronunciation.
63:
“That’s why you can’t heal, daddy. You have enervation rings inside you.”
“What if I cast this spell?” she asked, tapping the enervation spike.
"Enervation"
66:
“You’re a hornhead. I don’t suppose you can read memories like a MoM Pink?”
should be "M.o.M." Also,
out that if the medallions protected a pony of enervation, the moonstone within
"Enervation"
@Dutcher below: No problem. It's not like you could have known, and the connection between the two was tenuous at best anyway. I wasn't exactly in the middle of a thought.
:DIcy Shake wrote:Oh, and because it needs to be said: Xanthe/Stealthsuit OTP!
…You've 44 listed twice in the Other Chapter Editing section.
…Because the second 44 is meant to be 48.
re parchment:
Leather carp. :)
(That's Word of Somber, IIRC, and adopted from Ask Velvet.)
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 8:02 am
I can't imagine Cogjack being into intimacy, so hopefully Glory will notice something's wrong
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by FeatherDust Tue May 20, 2014 8:07 am
Dutcher wrote:Wonder how will Glory react after she finds out that Blackjack is not really Blackjack, and if they had an intimate moment.
Vinylshadow wrote:I can't imagine Cogjack being into intimacy, so hopefully Glory will notice something's wrong
Judging by what we saw from the shadow-side, the first thing Cogjack did on arriving was break up with Glory, or do something else to drive her away. She ran out of the Star House in tears, and it hasn't been that long since Blackjack's body got stolen. Just enough time for Cogs to arrive and be horrible to Glory.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Somber Tue May 20, 2014 8:26 am
"You want to do what?"
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 8:53 am
Cue Glory and Scotch plotting together to remove Cogjack's legs...
Could've sworn Ms. Tape already did it once
Could've sworn Ms. Tape already did it once
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Borsuq Tue May 20, 2014 8:59 am
Somber wrote:"You want to do what?"
I kid you not, the moment I read this line, I though about ten seconds to think what it means... then an image popped in my head... and now I can't stop laughing! WHY IS THIS AMUSING ME SO?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by OneMoreDaySK Tue May 20, 2014 8:59 am
That was during the respite over at Tenpony Tower, if I recall correctly.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 9:08 am
Something kinky involving Blackjack's robofingers probably
She's gonna miss her thumbs
and that is why my character has cybernetic forelimbs
Not Blackjack, but still, tentacles (It's clean, don't worry)
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Tentacles-418777066
I have a feeling when this whole Cogjack fiasco is over, Glory's going to be putting BJ through the wringer
Let's see...how many spanks does letting your body get stolen cost?
She's gonna miss her thumbs
Not Blackjack, but still, tentacles (It's clean, don't worry)
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Tentacles-418777066
I have a feeling when this whole Cogjack fiasco is over, Glory's going to be putting BJ through the wringer
Let's see...how many spanks does letting your body get stolen cost?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Borsuq Tue May 20, 2014 9:10 am
Probably around one tenth of the cost for letting you baby get stolen.Vinylshadow wrote:Something kinky involving Blackjack's robofingers probably
She's gonna miss her thumbsand that is why my character has cybernetic forelimbs
Not Blackjack, but still, tentacles (It's clean, don't worry)
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Tentacles-418777066
I have a feeling when this whole Cogjack fiasco is over, Glory's going to be putting BJ through the wringer
Let's see...how many spanks does letting your body get stolen cost?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 9:19 am
...I forgot about that
Cue typical evil meglomaniac using your baby against you to take over who knows what
...unless Blackjack tries some desperate gamble to transplant her baby from Cogjack to herself
I mean, she's in a clone body, which means she has the exact same genetic template as Cogjack, and hence she's legible to be a surrogate mother
Or in this case, the real mother
If I just spoiled something, forgive me
Cue typical evil meglomaniac using your baby against you to take over who knows what
...unless Blackjack tries some desperate gamble to transplant her baby from Cogjack to herself
I mean, she's in a clone body, which means she has the exact same genetic template as Cogjack, and hence she's legible to be a surrogate mother
Or in this case, the real mother
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Stringtheory Tue May 20, 2014 9:49 am
Can't spoil something that hasn't happened yet, right now its just a prediction, and a plausible one at that.Vinylshadow wrote:...I forgot about that
Cue typical evil meglomaniac using your baby against you to take over who knows what
...unless Blackjack tries some desperate gamble to transplant her baby from Cogjack to herself
I mean, she's in a clone body, which means she has the exact same genetic template as Cogjack, and hence she's legible to be a surrogate mother
Or in this case, the real motherIf I just spoiled something, forgive me
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 10:00 am
I saw it in my crystal ball
or maybe it was in the tea leaves
or maybe it was in the tea leaves
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by OneMoreDaySK Tue May 20, 2014 11:30 am
Thought there was something about a clone body being unable to act as a surrogate.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 11:34 am
Blackjack's not gonna care about that
MAMA BEAR MODE ACTIVATED
And ya'll thought Drunkjack was scary
MAMA BEAR MODE ACTIVATED
And ya'll thought Drunkjack was scary
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Guest Tue May 20, 2014 11:51 am
You're right SK. Cogs specifically says that.
@VS
If she knows that she can't carry the baby then chooses to go through with the transplant. You're right that makes her very scary. A very scary level of stupid.
@VS
If she knows that she can't carry the baby then chooses to go through with the transplant. You're right that makes her very scary. A very scary level of stupid.
Guest- Guest
Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 12:58 pm
So just another day for BJ
I don't remember reading anything about clones being incompatible with the spell though
I don't remember reading anything about clones being incompatible with the spell though
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Silver136 Tue May 20, 2014 1:40 pm
Cogs said something about it during their meeting below the core shortly before Blackjack lost her body if I remember correctly.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 2:03 pm
As I said, Blackjack is the 1% that somehow by laws of Discord is compatible
MAAAAAAAGIC
MAAAAAAAGIC
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by OneMoreDaySK Tue May 20, 2014 2:26 pm
@Vinylshadow
When did this turn into a shounen anime, where 1% -> 100%?
When did this turn into a shounen anime, where 1% -> 100%?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Vinylshadow Tue May 20, 2014 2:32 pm
Back when Blackjack came back from the dead...twice
Because SOMEPONY obviously used the dragon balls
or else they wished that Blackjack would never truly 'die'
Because SOMEPONY obviously used the dragon balls
or else they wished that Blackjack would never truly 'die'
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Retl Tue May 20, 2014 5:15 pm
Seriously though, what happened to it? I completely forgot.17:12 (Get_Bonus) P-21's Pipbuck. Did he lose it after the memory orb accident? What happened to it?
17:12 (NitoKa) It turned into a ballon
17:12 (Get_Bonus) BEST
17:12 (Get_Bonus) 10/10 would squeak erry time
Last edited by Retl on Tue May 20, 2014 5:16 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Replaced IRC angle brackets with parens.)
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Borsuq Tue May 20, 2014 5:36 pm
Retl wrote:Seriously though, what happened to it? I completely forgot.17:12 (Get_Bonus) P-21's Pipbuck. Did he lose it after the memory orb accident? What happened to it?
17:12 (NitoKa) It turned into a ballon
17:12 (Get_Bonus) BEST
17:12 (Get_Bonus) 10/10 would squeak erry time
I believe it was left behind in Stable 99 in the first chapter. He was supposed to be retired the next day, though the Overmare would have probably somehow stopped that if things went differently.
...
What memory orb accident?
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Retl Tue May 20, 2014 5:38 pm
I was thinking about an event later in, where BJ tries to force a locked memory orb, just before meeting Priest for the first time.Borsuq wrote:Retl wrote:Seriously though, what happened to it? I completely forgot.17:12 (Get_Bonus) P-21's Pipbuck. Did he lose it after the memory orb accident? What happened to it?
17:12 (NitoKa) It turned into a ballon
17:12 (Get_Bonus) BEST
17:12 (Get_Bonus) 10/10 would squeak erry time
I believe it was left behind in Stable 99 in the first chapter. He was supposed to be retired the next day, though the Overmare would have probably somehow stopped that if things went differently.
...
What memory orb accident?
Hadn't thought it was left behind so early. Neat. Thanks for the input!
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by Scienza Tue May 20, 2014 7:03 pm
Either way, he's in the same boat as Velvet Remedy in that he probably wouldn't wear one out of symbolic protest despite its functionality.
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Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion
by WavemasterRyx Tue May 20, 2014 7:43 pm
Retl wrote:Seriously though, what happened to it? I completely forgot.17:12 (Get_Bonus) P-21's Pipbuck. Did he lose it after the memory orb accident? What happened to it?
17:12 (NitoKa) It turned into a ballon
17:12 (Get_Bonus) BEST
17:12 (Get_Bonus) 10/10 would squeak erry time
*nuzzles Retl lightly*Chapter 1 wrote:I got him settled in detainment and then walked to get the shit-water off my face. Better, but the smell still lingered. Normal procedure involved a search, but I reckoned I’d searched him well enough dealing with his injured knee. I then used my security key to remove his PipBuck. A quick download of his files and I set it on the desk. Then I got the marker, levitated it to his flank, and with a magical zap gave him his last dot under his cutie mark. Now there wasn’t anything else to do but wait for the morning shift.
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