And we open, with a rather humorous bit about Velvet meeting Ditzy for the first time, summed up by this gem.
But she was still keeping her distance and giving the ghoul horrified looks. I think the medical pony inside of her was having an allergic reaction to the very existence of pony ghouls.
But the humor is soon turned into pants shitting terror for pretty much everypony in a several mile radius, even if they don't HAVE any pants. That Lovecraftian object in the barn, turns out that Silver bell was saving it to put on a fireworks display to celebrate the completion of her museum once she got that figurine.....a mushroom shaped fireworks display.....she was keeping an unexploded Balefire Bomb in her barn ((The FOE equivalent of a nuke.))
The group had managed to very easily this time convince Watcher to send word to new Appleloosa, and Ditzy came to pick up and care for Silver Bell, along with Railright, who gives Lil'pip the oh so happy news, she's effectively banished from New Appleloosa, since, rescuing ponies from a lifetime of slavery and brutality, kind of pisses of those that make their living enforcing that slavery and brutality, and the New Appleloosan were quite happy simply pretending they couldn't do anything and appeasing the slavers to spare themselves. And honestly, I really get the feeling that this isn't some big town wide decision, this is just Railright being a bureaucratic asshole and trying to make her a scapegoat, given some other stuff we learn about him later.
And while Lil'pip is upset with the news, not quite as much as she thought she should be, mostly because the only pony in town she actually forged any connection to was Ditzy, who she already knew wasn't going to leave him and still was willing to trade with her and help her, and knowing the place turned a blind eye and in their own way supported slavers left a bad taste in her mouth about settling there.
I had asked her permission, very quietly, to look at her Party-Time Mint-als recipe. It was now stored in my Pip Buck. For some reason, I hadn’t felt like mentioning that to the others yet.
Keeping secrets from fiends about drugs, yeah she's sliding headfirst down a slippery slope.
And almost instantly they wander into a raider nest, and we get more proof of why trying to negotiate and talk to these types of ponies is a waste of time.
To her credit, she’d actually tried to talk to the raiders. They returned her hello with some extremely perverted suggestions, at least one of which involved necrophilia.
And it's a fairly standard action scene, though watching Lil'pip try to fight while unable to use her TK is amusing. They more or less escape, losing pursuit but getting stuck far to close to them for comfort thanks to injuries. Though they at least find a defensible position to hide out in till they recover enough to move.
And we get more exposition about the past, learning that while pony's megaspells were cast by unicorns, Zebra's had magic of their own, but they used it by creating magical items, foci and fetishes, including the Balefire Bombs. We also learn Manehatten was taken our by a bomb that was snuck into the city, while Cloudsdale was hit by balefire tipped missiles.
Lil'pip and Calamity move out to secure the building they are hiding in, and instantly come to a barricade maned, errr ponied by raiders. There are few things more satisfying hen the surprised "OH FUCK!" when a bad guy discovers, you just looted some grenades in the last room. And speaking of grenades, their plan for disarming a grenade bouquet trap just has to be seen to be believed.
Sadly, neither Calamity nor I had the sort of finesse with explosives and traps that would allow us to safely collect the grenades. Disarming the grenade bouquet was done at a distance, and involved a thrown bucket and a lot of running.
And now that the raiders seem to be all dealt with, on with the looting, err, savaging. Inside a safe she finds some magical energy grenades, a new Stealth Buck, and a recording about how the Stealth Buck was found on a Zebra, and fears that it meant somepony was leaking arcane secrets to the enemy.
And after leaving the raider camp they travel a bit and meet Gawd. (Fun note I first went through these from the audio recording on youtube, so did not know till much later they were saying Gawd not God.) Who is the gryphon leader of a band of mercenaries that are under the employ of someone named "Mister Topaz" who is the self appointed "Lord and master" of the area.
We get a little bit about rock farming and gems, pretty much the fanon that a rock farm farms geodes that are split for the gems inside, which in FOE are then used to help power or focus magical energy and devices.
And unsurprisingly, they get a ques..err job offer. And we get a bit of detail about Gawd, she takes loyalty very seriously, and killed members of her crew when they tried to betray a contract and sell the ponies they were hired to guard to a higher bidder. But her loyalty is ONLY to the contract, she will work for anyone or anypony, good, bad, evil, nice. If they can pay, she's loyal to them. Currently she's under contract to Mister Topaz, but believes there is something fishy going on, and wants Lil'pip and crew to investigate someone else under his employ, since she can't do it herself without breaking contract. And since this is ultimately in the benefit to Mister Topaz if the pony she's suspicious of is planning to double cross him like she thinks, well it's a long twisted game of justification.
And in true cliched fashion Gawd want's one of them to stay behind as collateral to make sure they do the job, which Velvet instantly volunteers to do, since she saw several wounded ponies she wants to stay and tend to.
The place they need to infiltrate turns out to be an old prison..errr "re-education compound" which Calamity manages to fly them into. And they instantly begin looting everything in sight, first the coins from a vending machine then a random safe. While picking the lock Lil'pip shares a few deduction she's had, that something big is coming, that even for the Wastes stuff isn't right, first the raiders in Ponyville attacking the slavers that seemed to have an arrangement with them, then the Alicorn being sent to supervise new Appleloosa. And whatever this is, Red Eye was responsible. And one of the reason Lil'pip agreed to help Gawd, other then the fact they didn't stand a chance in Tartarus of surviving saying no, was to try and poke around and see if she could find any more information.
And a fun little near reference.
“Ah suppose that makes sense.” Calamity chuckled, “’Sides, how often c’n Ah say Ah’m on a mission from...”
“Don’t.”
Calamity nickered. “Ah guess not even once.”
Finally opening the safe, she finds a package that had been left behind by Sweetie Belle when she was at the prison as a guest entertainer. Though the package has several items the only thing Lil'pip can focus on is happily checking out Rarity's flanks since it contain a figurine of her. And it gets' to the point even Calamity notices.
“Are ya done visually molestin’ that statue, girl?”
She adds it to her collection, getting a small boost of power and feeling a bit of the energy she'd drained over the last few days and not been able to rest and recover come back. And she stashes it in her saddle bag, after giving it a good spin in front of her to make sure she's checked Rarity out from every angle.
Perk Time- 5% increased crit chance. never a bad thing.
Thoughts, nothing really to talk about passed what is above, just a decent chapter, but no major major developments or things that need discussing yet, just wrapping up Silver Bell and setting up the next part of the plot.
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