Dark Horse

Hey guys! As has been stated above; this type of thread has appeared many times in the past. Ordinarily, they are sentenced to the Debate Pit due to their often heated discussion, however as that Section has a number of posting restrictions in place for newer members, we decided to allow a Religious discussion thread to be maintained here so long as the debating was kept to a minimum. I'm going to go ahead and merge this thread with that older one, however I would like to remind you all to remember to please stick to the topic question and do your best to keep religious debates to a minimum. If you would like to debate that, their are plenty of threads still active within Debate Pit for you to do so. Let's keep it civil in here! Please! Thanks!

@Raven Rawne Still nursing a slight headache over what he had just read; Saffron was more than eager to accept the bottle Crystal slid his way, and following a quick sniff of the strong, mysterious liquid, shot back a large gulp of the stuff. "Whoooo..! That's a real kicker." He said as he shuddered and winced from the effects. "An acquired taste though.. don't even wanna think about what's in it." He slid the drink back to his companion. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she looked suddenly... duller? Like her coat had just lost a few layers of its colour. He tilted his head head and simply stared at her, not really even sure what for. Eventually, the Mare got back to her hooves, and pointed out the one remaining place that they hadn't searched yet: the large storage cabinet that the notebook had mentioned. "That's right... there's some kinda doohicky in there. The controller for those crowns... OH!" He sat up straight as the specific details came back to him. "There's a Talisman in there too! That's a valuable source of energy right there. Could fetch a tidy sum for something like that back with a settlement, split the profits 60/40! ...Okay, okay. 50/50." He quickly added as Crystal shot him a stern glare. "Blame a scavenger for trying." Crystal thankfully dismissed the comment and proceeded to ponder over the more immediate issue of getting the thing open first. Saffron hadn't brought any jimmying tools with him, and from the sounds of things neither had she. He didn't want to have to try smash it open, for fear that it might damage whatever was inside, including the talisman. "Hmm?" Saffron muttered as Crystal pointed out a rather obvious solution to their problem. Glancing up at his horn made it quickly obvious to him as well. "Oh! Yeah, I guess that could work.. doesn't look like it's anything too complex.." The lock looked rather rusted actually, and the cabinet itself had clearly seen better days. Saffron stepped up to it; focused his thoughts and closed his eyes, feeling the magic energy build up within him, while Crystal stepped forward to hold the cabinet steady in case it fell over. Snapping his eyes open moments later, he directed his full attention towards the cabinet door, bathing it in a bright crimson hue. He felt himself gain a telekinetic grip over the handle, and as though enacting the action in his head, pulled with a steadily increasing force. The lock creaked and groaned, a screw or two shot loose and fell to the ground as the rusted, weary frame buckled under the pressure. The cabinet door was pulled in such a way now that he could just start to make out a thing or two about what was inside through the small gaps. Applying a bit more force, Saffron grounded himself and pulled mentally. *SNAP!* The rickety old lock fell clean out from the doorframe, leaving it suspended mid-air by Saffron's magical grasp. The cabinet door, now minus it's handle, simply limped open lazily. "Nothing too it!" Said Saffron proudly, as he levitated the old lock into a corner. "Ah, hope you weren't splintered or anything?" He asked to Crystal as she emerged from behind the busted cabinet. "Although I think that'd be the least of our injuries by the time we get out of here... now, let's take a look." Saffron approached the cabinet with an air of caution, just in case the Slaver had booby-trapped the closet in some way. Now that he thought of it, he was lucky that the door hadn't been rigged to explode if it were opened. That was a popular tactic among less-savoury types. He reached out with his hoof, Crystal right beside him, and pulled back the limply opened door the rest of the way. "Well... would ya look at that..." Saffron stood in wonder. Inside was a fairly large antenna like device that took up almost the entire space of the cabinet. Unlike the crown atop the Mayor's head however, this still looked to be functioning. Flashing lights were whirring away on it, and Saffron could clearly hear the distinct hum of electrical energy surging through it, almost boring into his skull. At the base of the device was what looked to be a miniaturized terminal station, clearly the command interface, and displayed on the monitor screen were the words: No active commands issued. Units in range of this station: 4. Glancing further behind the terminal, Saffron caught sight of what he was after, the obvious power source for this machine: A shining gold talisman, glowing brilliantly in its receptacle. An incredible piece of Pre-War technology and some of the most sought after artefacts in the Wasteland for their ability to harness and store an immense amount of magical energy. Finding one out here in the back-end of nowhere was certainly not what Saffron had been expecting. "Hang on..." Saffron said as he tore his eyes away from the Talisman and back to the antenna's display screen. "This thing is saying that there are 4 more of those mind control thingamabobs in range around here. What's it talking about? There isn't a soul to be found out there except for the Mirelurks. Surely if somepony else died from their use he would have taken them back if they were still working." He pondered to Crystal. The idea of there being more of those horrible things scattered throughout the village didn't sit well with him, especially if another scavenger, or worse, got their hoofs on them. He shuddered and flicked his tail as a chill went through him. "How are we supposed to find them though? They could be anywhere in town and I don't fancy having to sneak around all those Mirelurks.. especially in the dark." The Stallion said as he glanced out one of the windows. It wouldn't be long before the sun was setting.

@Nightmare Season @Raven Rawne "Think nothing of it, m'dear." Saffron responded to Peony, while not taking his eyes off of Richly at his hooves. "Turning down an offer from this kind of scum won't cause me to lose any sleep." He gave a confident grin as his eyes remained fixed to the aloof red Stallion, ensuring that he wasn't going anywhere. "And would you know it? Here comes the city guard right about now! How convenient, eh Richly?" Unfortunately for him, Richly did think so! "W-what..?! Hey!! Wait just a minute...!" Saffron had barely a moment to register any of that before he felt himself in the grasp of a magical hold, his body completely frozen and unable to move. "Y-you.. you can't be serious!" Saffron yelled in panicked protest. But he realized that they were in a precarious situation. Both he and Crystal were outsiders to Upper Canterlot. Their immediate presence would be met with suspicion and disdain from the locals and especially the guards. It was very likely that they wouldn't even get a chance to defend themselves! He looked furiously over towards Richly, but saw to his surprise that he hadn't taken this opportunity to try and get Peony's attention. Indeed, he seemed quite preoccupied with what looked like two large vines keeping his back hooves entrapped. "What the hay...?" He heard Peony speak up, surprisingly calm and content, and she attempted to explain to the guards what had really happened. Saffron tried to back her up, but he found it very difficult to speak in his current position. Every time Richly attempted to defend his own position he wanted to scream. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and before long Saffron felt the magical grip on him release, and he fell to the ground, thoroughly relieved. "Ooogh.." The Stallion groaned. "Is that how that usually feels? I gotta be sure to reduce the amount of times I do it to other Ponies on stage..." He had almost no chance to even collect himself before he was being further accosted by the guardponies' questions. Saffron tried to explain everything to the best of his ability. However, he intentionally left out any details regarding Solar Blaze. True, he had damaged and stolen from Peony's garden, but Saffron couldn't help but feel pity for his reasons. In any case, the true culprit was already in custody. Saffron then finished up his testimony and asked: "So, can I go now?" But the guard wasn't listening. He had turned his head away from him and was instead now focusing, in complete awe, at something else making its way into the garden... "Princess Celestia?!" Saffron exclaimed in amazement. Now that was unexpected. The Stallion bowed formally, as did everypony else in the garden, as a gesture of respect. Though as he rose he worriedly hoped that she wouldn't come over and question him. He thought that he might just fall apart and lose all composure if she did. He had never been this close to the Princess before in his life! Fortunately, her attention was directed towards Peony, still blindfolded, and obviously concerned over her intentions and reasons for keeping the dangerous blue rose as part of her garden. He couldn't help but feel a little bit of sympathy towards Peony as she explained her reasons. Her intentions were noble, after all, and it was clear she was only thinking for the safety of other Ponies. Saffron admired that outlook. It was something that made her different from the usual Upper Canterlot folk. Still, he agreed that it was best she hand it over for safekeeping. It took Saffron quite a while to get over the awe of Celestia's presence, and only when he suddenly realized that he would like to discuss some of his concerns regarding the class system with her, did he realize that she had already departed... As had everypony else. "...Oh." He said, dumbfounded and looking around. He supposed that Peony had gone off to be cured under escort. And as for Crystal, well... she looked just as confused as he did. "No reason for us to remain here." He shrugged in response to her request. "And you look like a ghost just walked through you." He smiled. "Come on. The walk will do us good."

@Raven Rawne "You serious?" Saffron was pretty amazed to hear of how long this settlement could have been around for. "I honestly would have thought that this was a more recent settlement. Swamplands aren't usually the most popular choice for settling down in... y'know, for obvious reasons." He tapped his nose as he said this, still enduring the unpleasant whiff of rotting flesh near him. "But I suppose once you get used to that... and the Mirelurks... and the rotting wood... and the difficulty getting around... and the supposedly nearby lunatics that would do this to a Pony..." He exasperatedly pointed towards the deceased slumped on his chair. "...Yes, I suppose it could have been an alright place to live." He knew that this wasn't the best time for snark, but truth be told, he agreed with Crystal fully. This place had shown him some real potential of civilization trying to rebuild itself in an orderly fashion, but like so many things in this messed up world of theirs, the Wasteland had found a way to savagely beat that down. Not to say that these Ponies hadn't already been enduring tough conditions, the presence of Mirelurks suggested that. But at this point in time, it was looking to Saffron that what truly killed this once thriving settlement, was whatever or whoever was responsible for the death of this unfortunate soul behind him, and the possible creator of that 'crown'. And speaking of that, it seemed like Crystal was having another one of her 'intuition' moments. Saffron nodded in understanding, and assisted her in moving the corpse-stricken chair away from the Mayor's desk, holding his breath as he did so. He supposed he could have used his magic, but it just didn't seem... respectful to do that to the deceased. Besides, he still wasn't sure of the nature of that head device, and he didn't want to risk it reacting badly to his magic, broken or not. "Sorry old timer..." he said with a hint of somber as they set the chair down, glancing nervously at the device again. "But let's see if we can find out what happened to you..." With the chair moved, Crystal now had access to some under drawers that Saffron hadn't noticed initially. "Good eye." He said as she got to work salvaging. There wasn't much to be found at first. Typical office material, and a crude yet still functioning pipe revolver. "Pity. I don't normally carry .45's. I guess it shouldn't be too surprising for the Mayor to keep one handy though." He said, checking the weapon's barrel. "Curious. Either the weapon wasn't fully loaded, or a shot was fired.." He mused, noting the absence of a single round into the gun. He turned back to the corpse and, reluctantly, examined it a bit closer again. There was definitely no sign of a bullet wound, unless it was hidden under the head device. Almost instinctively, he reached his hooves out to try and remove the 'crown' from its head. "Hmm?" He twisted his head around to glance back at Crystal, and saw her removing the cabinet drawer entirely, resting it on the desk and analyzing it thoroughly as though suspecting something, and it seemed her hunch was right! "Well well..." The stallion said impressively, as the dusty notebook fell to the desk. "Nothing gets by you, does it? Remind me to check under every flowerpot from now on." He smirked back as he joined next to her. Hearing her comment about using a similar hiding method for something, he added: "Heh, and I assume that's not 'need-to-know' information?" Of course he didn't expect her to tell him, but a small part of him was genuinely curious about what could be considered important to this Mare. Looking her over here, you wouldn't think that Crystal would even have much valuable to want to hide. "Alright. Let's take a look at this..." The Stallion pulled open the binding holding the notebook shut, and flicked through a couple of pages. He could see crudely drawn diagrams and a couple of sprawled out notes here and there, but there was also some actual entries. Didn't seem like it had been used for that long. He went back to the first entry and began to read... And as he read, his expression began to drop more and more slowly, until eventually he was looking quite serious. Whoever had wrote this was clearly not a regular face of this settlement... "Can't believe how easy it was to get in good with the Mayor!" The first entry started as. "These idiots are far too trusting. It's the perfect setup for testing the new prototype! And all I had to do was convince him that I was a traveling tinkerer looking for a place to do some 'quiet' work. Give me a fucking break! That kind of excuse would never have flown in most settlements! Fucking backwater morons." Saffron felt himself seethe as he could feel the despicable smugness radiating from this pony as he wrote. It went on to explain that, sure enough, the reason for this pony being there was indeed to test out and experiment further on the device now resting atop the former Mayor's head. Apparently, this pony was part of a large slaver ring that operated some few miles away in the middle of a nowhere location, and from what he was able to gather, it sounded like a pretty serious operation. He had never heard of any slavers operating in the area before now. The entries continued: "Still can't believe our luck that we stumbled across that factory storehouse full of these old 'domestication units'. Me and some of the other guys thought we were wasting our time, but the Boss knew we had found something special... he was always a smart one he was." 'Domestication units'? The hay was that about..? Saffron mused and skipped a bit further through some ramblings to more important stuff. It turned out, rather horrifically to Saffron's eyes, that the crown-like device was originally a piece of pre-war technology. As the entries explained, it appeared that they had been designed by the Ministry of Wartime Technology with the intention of being used on livestock and other animals that were kept near the front lines. The device seemed to act as some kind of 'pacifier' to the animal's brainwaves and upper-thought functions, and left them unable to exercise almost any amount of free will whatsoever. It would then feed instructions directly into the cerebral cortex, received via a "Master control unit", and essentially meant that the creature was at the complete control of whomever was sending the instructions. The records said that they tried to use them as a way of controlling animal resources and stop them from being captured by the enemy, but Saffron could scarcely believe what he was reading. What kind of idiotic technology...? "And that's not even the best part!" The entries continued, sounding far more enthusiastic about the whole thing than what Saffron was feeling. "The boss was able break in and find some more secretive files... really dirty stuff!" Was this Pony for real? "They even tried some secret experiments with them on Ponies! Yeah!! I'll never forget the look on his face when he told us that! Can you imagine? Having other Ponies do whatever you tell 'em to do, with no strings attached!" Saffron winced as he too realized the implications. "Sure, we're basically all crazy animals anyway. Look at this fucked up world we left ourselves in! Some of us could do with a bit of "domestication". HA!" "Oh I'm sure of that you smug little bastard..." Saffron muttered through almost gritted teeth. Of all the things for a slaver operation to come across, this was like hitting the state jackpot. A free pass ticket to getting all the slaves you ever wanted. The notebook continued to explain that, although their were plans to introduce them to captured Zebras and have them fight as mind-controlled slaves, the project never got off the ground because of difficulties in getting the devices to work with the much more sophisticated brains of sapient species. Small progress was apparently being made towards it until the Great War put a final, definitive end to it. The slavers, it seems had now gotten a hold of this research, and were using out of the way Settlements such as this as their testing grounds. This particular slaver had been here for almost a month, building the trust of the Settlers with false promises of "fantastic new technologies" that would make their lives so much easier here. He had even tested a few of the devices out on the local Mirelurk population, apparently to great success, and had won almost the entire settlement over with his "masterful" display of control. All the while, he had been secretly making modifications based on his own tests and that of the original MoWT research towards making the devices effective on Ponies. That would at least explain the crude looking additions to the one that the Mayor wore. Judging by the very last entry of the notebook, however, that hadn't gone quite according to plan. "Fucking hell!" The entry managed to be even more untidy here, almost as if it was written in a hurry. "Should've fucking guessed my luck wouldn't last. Made the final few adjustments to the unit I've been working over last night. Looked like a real doozy! The magic inside the power crystal turned all dark and shit when I added that last 'enhancement', fucking beautiful work." Saffron scoffed audibly. "I knew that was it. From everything I've read this should have been perfect! So I get up here, tell Mayor Dumbass that I need him to test my latest breakthrough. Of course the idiot didn't even try to question the device, thought it was like some new "crown" of office for him. He eagerly puts it on and I get to work. Again, didn't even ask why I was keeping a big ass control unit in his own storage closet! Not like I could hide it anywhere else. But anyway, I switch the fucking thing on, make sure all the correct settings are in place, then I tried to send it a simple command. Celestia of fuck if his screaming didn't send a chill down my spine! I thought for sure that somepony would hear it and my cover was blown. He was spazzing out, disjointing, eyes in the back of his head and like weeping blood! It was freaky as fuck, but I couldn't stop it even if I tried. Thing just went completely nuts and like fried the poor fuckers brain out. Then the dark magic like, ruptured or something. Completely shattered the containment crystal and just blew up. If his brain being melted didn't kill him, that sure as fuck did!" Saffron looked up for a moment, back towards the Mayor's corpse with a sudden sense of sympathy and regret. Of all of the horrible ways to die in this world, nopony deserved it liked that... "So yeah." The notebook continued, and Saffron now felt himself gripping it very tightly in anger. "The Mayor's fucking dead, and I've had to barricade the door shut." That might explain the torrid state of the office.. "Better be nopony that tries to get fucking curious about this. I'm gonna spend the night in here making some adjustments to the rest of the units. Pretty sure I just gave that one too much power. Then I'll slap them on everypony else in town, bring them back to our base with me. Good news is that the Mayor has records on pretty much every pony living here, so I'll take those as a catalogue of numbers for back at base. ...Shit, I'm gonna have to leave the control unit here. It's too fucking big to carry with us, and it'd make us a massive target to every raider within 10 miles. I can't even take the talisman because I need it to keep broadcasting the control signal... FUCK! Those things are hard to come by!" A Talisman! Saffron thought excitedly. Now that was a valuable piece of salvage. "I'm just gonna have to leave it locked in the closet... Once we get back to base I can switch to another control unit. I can come back for this one later. I'll stir up some of the Mirelurks before we leave to deter any curious fucking scavengers from the place..." "Gee, thank you so much asshole, really do appreciate that." Saffron scoffed as he threw the notebook back down onto the desk. Beside him, Crystal was nose first into a bottle of something that looked like a stiff drink. "I'll have some of that too if it's legit. I don't think you're gonna believe some of what I just read..." He reiterated and explained all the contents of the notebook to her.

@Raven Rawne @Nightmare Season Sounds good! Like when a celebrity shows up and one suddenly feels as though they've just been blurred out of focus. Gives us the excuse to wind down and recap events anyway.

@Raven Rawne @Nightmare Season A little dumbfounded, perhaps. Nevertheless, I think at least Saffron should assist her in finding the cure, probably as a way of paying her back for her hospitality earlier. Don't even necessarily have to make a big thing out of it before we move on, but if the two intend to stay in touch it would make sense not to just leave her to sort herself out and all.

@Nightmare Season, Nice to see you back! I know what it's like to be in that stress zone and it just sucking your creativity dry. Hope you're past the worst of it!

A noble goal! In another reality you may have gotten along well with Nova. A version of him has had... similar ambitions. Maybe not for as quite noble reasons though.

@Ginger Ale I must say, I'm in love with both your name and your batpone. Great to have you here! So what are your current ambitions, if any?

@Raven Rawne Thanks for your patience. I should be able to carry on regularly again for the time being.

@Raven Rawne "I never said that I didn't..." Saffron mumbled in response while looking away uneasily. Truth be told, while the Stallion was excellent at hacking his way through high security doors with complex security systems in place, he had never quite been able to get his hoofs around lockpicking. It wasn't his fault! Why did they have to make the tumblers so damn precise!? Still, he observed closely as Crystal went through the motions almost effortlessly. He could tell she was well practiced and couldn't hide a smile at her handywork, as after a couple of firm kicks the door broke loose and fell open, though it seemed as though something was obstructing it on the other side. He felt himself brace for a trap, but nothing came. "Mmm.. only if you take it easy on the novices." He replied with a smirk. "Look's like it was nothing too secure. Anything behind?" He asked as Crystal poked her head through the gap in the door. Whatever it was, it didn't appear pleasant. "Oh... Great." Saffron said, his ears drooping as he understood the meaning behind her words. Making his way through the door, he kicked some of the blockages out of his way, and found himself in in the trashed remains of the Mayor's office. It looked as though a hurricane had swept through the room; papers, documents, filing tools and all kinds of material littered the floor, as if somepony had thoroughly gutted the place on a desperate search. But this wasn't all that had defaced the room. Slumped into a chair behind the mayor's desk was the corpse of an elderly Earth Pony, as Crystal had alluded to. He had clearly been dead for quite some time; his brown fur was pale and withered, dried streaks of blood trickled from his hanging mouth, and a half open eye displayed his already atrophied and bloodshot eye. Saffron closed his eyes as he felt a shudder rush down his spine. He had seen many corpses before, some in far worse condition than this, but he still always felt an uneasy sickness come over him every time he witnessed it. Saffron opened his eyes again as Crystal pointed out the strange metallic object resting atop the Stallion's head. He hadn't noticed it at first, but it instantly gave him a bad feeling. "I'm not sure... it doesn't look like any ordinary headgear." He responded to his companion. "But I'd be careful, if it is what killed him then it could be a trap." Saffron tried to analyze it at a distance, but the details were too minute. It clearly had a small magic energy gem powering it, but it appeared to be damaged, a black ooze dripping from the source. The whole thing looked very crude in its design. The stallion turned his head in surprise at Crystal as she expressed a desire to bury him. He hadn't expected that kind of empathy from her at first. It was an unusual trait for a lone wanderer to have, especially after years of traveling solo. During his own travels, Saffron had met many ponies who had been so desensitized by the harshness of the wasteland that they had simply lost all desire to care. Saffron supposed that this was just a natural adaption to prevent them from going insane over all the horrible things they had seen, but even so, it sometimes seemed as though the Wasteland had just... crushed their spirits. He was pleased to see that maybe it hadn't quite gotten to Crystal yet, although he wondered for how long. He nodded his head. "I get you. But the nature of the swamp would also make it difficult to bury him proper, and his corpse would just become Mirelurk food. He deserves something more dignified. Celestia knows he didn't get it while he was alive..." He said somberly. "Yeah. There should be something here that at least tells us what was going on leading up to whatever happened." He replied to Crystal's query. "I'm... going to try and examine him more closely. Don't worry, I know my way around a lot of old and new tech. I'll be careful." He assured. As Crystal got to work trying to sort through the mess of documents on the floor, Saffron carefully approached the dead Stallion's corpse, his eyes scanning for any signs of a trap, or in case the device turned out to be a rudimentary trip-mine of sorts. The smell of the slowly rotting corpse was quite strong, his poor nose was being put through Tartarus today. Now that he was almost right up next to the corpse, he could see that the device looked a bit more sophisticated up close. The headpiece itself looked to be of pre-war design, with a few non-functioning LED's and what looked to be a small signal receiver jutting out from the side. Despite this, it had clearly been modified in some ways. Several cables that looked as though they had been crudely attached to the frame lay in an untidy fashion, many of them connected to the damaged energy crystal. Saffron could see that the containment capsule had actually shattered, leading him to surmise that the crystal had overloaded. Probably why it had cracked and was leaking a rather unsettling black ooze... "It looks as if this thing fried out." He called to Crystal. "Whole thing looks damaged beyond repair, although the actual framework looks to be intact. I wonder if--" He cut himself off, a disturbing thought entering his mind. "Shit... have you found anything interesting?" He asked her, as he turned his own attention to the Mayor's desk and began to search it.

@Raven Rawne Sadly, my current course is a full year intensive and doesn't have a summer break. We work straight the way through from October until the following October, so no real break periods to speak of. The last week has just been particularly rough, but I should have a little bit more breathing space after today once this project is in~

@Raven Rawne Sorry for the slight delay here.. Have had a class project I've been trying to finish all week and it's basically consumed my focus and energy. Should be back up to full speed by tomorrow.

Are you referring to this thread, by chance? Took a wrong turn in the Debate Pit and got lost it seems.