open Grave Robbers at Large

[BlackShardNixium 277]

Death is my Business

And Business is good.

OOC:
https://mlpforums.com/topic/141767-grave-robbers-at-large-mature/

“O, Death… O, Death… Won’t you spare me over til another year?”
In the dark of the night, when the cold howling of the wind had reclaimed the city and the last of the streetlights had flickered and died, a lone voice echoed out amid the grimy walls and boarded windows of the alley. The silver mare’s song was soft and lilting, yet it’s words heavy and pleading, as she paced down the center of the jagged, cobblestone path. The forlorn moaning of the earth and the faint skittering of the rats that hid in the shadows didn’t bother. Neither did the mold-encrusted walls or that god-awful stench. This side of the city only came out to play at night, and it was a sight she was familiar with.
Just beyond, if one allowed their eyes to adjust to the gloom of the city at rest, one could see crumbling, stilted silhouettes of tombstones.
“Well what is this that I can’t see, with ice cold hands takin’ hold of me?...”
The graveyard was a small, almost pitiful little plot of land fenced off behind a just as pitiful little church nestled in the heart of a city of demons. It shared its bed with a dingy little tavern ironically placed right beside it, and it had seen its fair share of drunkards and whores stumbling their way past its gates. As far as graveyards went, it was shit. Silvia had seen far better.
Who would bury valuable items in a place like this? She was surprised this little hovel hadn’t already been picked clean.
“Well I am Death, none can excel. I’ll open the door to Heaven or Hell...”
No matter. It wasn’t her place to make idle comments on work venues. Work was work, and money was money.
Good money. Damn good money.
Say what you want about pilfering shinies from a rotting sack of bones, it paid well .It was a dirty job absolutely intolerant of the weak and squeamish.
It was something few ponies could do.
So of course it paid well!
As long as she got the reward, she’d rob the dearly departed as she pleased. It wasn’t as if they needed it anymore, anyway.
Flaring out her powdery silver wings, Silvia easily cleared the sad excuse for a fence surrounding the plot of browning grass.Inhaling the musty scent of old earth and decay, she carefully trotted down the rows of headstones and diligently reading off each name. All the while, she kept singing that haunting little tune.
The end had always been her favorite.
“No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold. Nothing satisfies me but your soul.”
Death could have all the souls he wanted.
Silvia was a Graverobber.
She would take the riches.

[FancyHorse 1,209]

The filth of catacombs, it's wretched stench was enough to make most ponies heave. The rebreather helped but even so it's foul odor would manage to seep in almost forcing the seasoned mare to compose herself rightly. Her tool light flickered a bit with each shuffle. The next pile of remains was surpassed only leading to more upon more dunes of the dead. Quite the shambles. A hastily spruced collection of bones and none were even properly placed.

 

Just tossed through shute.

 

"Come on little buddy." She spoke to herself. Retrieving from its small carry case and assembled was her M5 Seeker drone. A lazy tool, advertised for beach wandering stallions looking to find that rare bit looming in the sand; now appropriately the labor of a loot seeking Guard retiree. How quaint? Possibly.

 

The quad drone sputtered to life it's audio that of a dragonflies' wings. The emoji eyes display smiled upon its user.

 

"Fetch command. Area." She stated in monotone. With a tot of its little fanfare it whizzes into the dank air the aura of its field scan blanketing the ground with a blue hue.

[BlackShardNixium 277]

She could only imagine the type of drag Sapphire Crest had been. 
The old hag had been shoved six feet under over two decades ago, buried with some priceless antique necklace that some fat, greasy first-class ass had demanded she retrieve for him. Something about family honor and being written out of some uselss, dusty will? Silvia couldn't care less. He'd offered her more money than she'd seen in a while, even in her line of work.
Must be some necklace. 
Sometimes, while slaving away over a mound of smelly, corpse-ridden earth, Silvia, writer that she was, liked to make up stories about her "victims". For instance, she really only could imagine that Crest had been a drag. Little old lady had died a year or so before she was born. She imagined that Crest had been all prim and proper, eating off dainty china and speaking in long, overdramatic vowels. She assumed she'd been real old-fashioned, as old folks tended to be. 
Gods, that irritated her.
She huffed out a short breath of exhaustion as she stabbed the dulling shovel back into the rich soil for what seemed like the thousandth time that evening. Four feet. 
Man she was really off her game tonight. 
This was the hardest part of the job. The monotonous routine of digging and digging and digging, and then just digging some more for the hell of it. Grave robbing was not in any way glamerous. Three fourths of one's time was spent hunched over corpse-rot and dirt, sweating off years of one's life trying to uncover someone else's buried treasure. But there was a certain kind of roguish adventure in sneaking into hallowed ground in the dead of night and robbing God and his den of the dead blind. 
Wow that sounded bad. Even in her own head.
She would tell herself to get a hobby, but if she was being honest with herself... this was her hobby. 

[FancyHorse 1,209]

(For immersive purpose: Here is a BGM https://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=QEGtv0A6JMY)

 

Clattering and clang, the rhythmic-semi rhythmic batter of bones rustle and echo as she slid down a dune of bones. Honestly it was quite the apocalyptic environment and literally the foundations of the masses resting above, maybe working in a morgue wouldn't be a bad career choice?

 

"They seem to be a high demanding job?" Sharpie questioned as she resumed her prowl. The occasional scan to the ground to snatch up any small change or perhaps a cheap metallic necklace.

 

"Did you forget your change on your friend's corpse?" she continued about with her sarcastic humor.

 

Just ahead on another mound, tumbling and spiraling fell another. The large steel hatch slammed open able to be made out "Nit Pick Bros. Cremation Services."

 

And just within those rattling fried bones was the unmistakable ringing of fancy jewelry, and hopefully not just a pile of lump shiny wealth.

[BlackShardNixium 277]

By the time she finally unearth Sapphire Crest, she was tempted to slam the stupid shovel into the old mare's bones. She had never been one to disrespect the dead past stealing their belongings but gods, there was something about this entire night that just seemed to drag on and on.
Regardless, she simply placed the shovel aside, at the lip of the large crater she'd dug.
Looking down, it wasn't a very pretty sight. She was decomposed, yes, but this old skeleton hadn't breathed fresh air in decades. It smelled terrible. Perhaps more terrible than the filth of the alley.However, she wasn't really interested in what remained of a once prestigious rich-bitch. She only had eyes for the rusted, mud-covered lockbox held harmlessly in Crest's hooves. 
At least, that was probably what had been intended when she'd been buried.
But years of decay had left nothing but bitter, fragile bones lying loosely around it. It was nothing to lift the box free of its earthen grave and set it next to the shovel.
She shook herself firmly, knocking a few hours worth of dust and dirt from her coat, before spreading her wings and giving a gentle flap, effectively lifting herself from the pit. She took the box and stored it in the worn, leather satchel slung over her shoulders before strapped the shovel to her back. Normally she would take the time to refill the hole she'd dug after a successful mission.
But something told her nobody ever really came to visit this place.
So she left it be, instead favoring to exit the dilapidated little hovel and trot back down the alley she'd came from. She'd open the lockbox once she got back home.