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private FoE: Tale of Two Wastelanders (1x1 w/ Raven Rawne)


Dark Horse

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(edited)

OOC Thread

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@Raven Rawne

The distant silhouette of the Canterlot Ruins remained visible even through the layers of dust that flew freely all around Saffron as he pushed towards his destination. The collar of his long duster coat was pulled up over his muzzle, serving as a shield against the harsh conditions while a rudimentary pair of optic goggles did the same for his eyes, their faded amber tint providing the only striking colour against his largely dull brown and grey appearance.

He had been travelling for what felt like almost 2 hours by now, though he had no means of checking the exact time. Rising as close to sunrise as was bright enough to safely set off, he had carefully followed his mapped out route towards the area where he was now certain lay his destination. After spending almost the entirety of yesterday simply trying to ensure that he had reached the rough area, he was feeling a certain sense of relief. The travelling traders at his last settlement stop had warned him that the abandoned town had no distinguishing features surrounding it, and it had turned out they weren't exaggerating. It was as though whatever signs of life might once had existed had been stripped away by the relentless dust and bone dry conditions. The only creatures that he had encountered where the occasional radscorpions buried under the ground, though even these were infrequent.

It was just as well too, because although he had managed to make it through uninjured, the same couldn't be said for his equipment. He had been forced to leave behind a valuable StealthBuck generator after the dust particles had ruined its circuitry, depriving him of a useful exploration tool. His armour had been personally customized by him overtime to withstand tougher conditions such as these, but it had still taken a beating and was in need of cleaning and light repairs. He'd require a full equipment check at the earliest opportunity.

Still, he hadn't come this far to be stopped by fritzy gear, and as he pushed further onwards towards the marked point on his map, he finally felt the dust storm begin to settle and ease off. With renewed enthusiasm, he broke out into a sprinting gallop, and made his way towards a small overhang that pushed up from the ground ahead.

And there it was; sitting ominously against the lake that once flowed from Canterlot's mountain was the site of a very dismal looking ghost town. Whatever kind of activity that had once been present here had been largely consumed by the encroaching river, giving the entire town a very swamp-like appearance. Some of the foundations had clearly collapsed, because a couple of buildings where now half sunk into the water, jutting out at odd angles. Despite this, some evidence of post-war modifications were also present. Roughly built bridges connected several of the buildings together from the swamp, and a few locations had signs of shoddy repair jobs or defensive outposts. Oddly enough, they were all perfectly intact, suggesting no attempt at a struggle. Not, at least, with conventional weaponry.

The Unicorn's horn glowed a soft orange hue as he retrieved from under his duster an old and somewhat worn looking AEP7 laser pistol. He had managed to keep the more delicate parts of the weapon running for quite some time through careful maintenance and scavenged spare parts, however he also hadn't forced it to endure a dust storm quite like the one he had experienced this morning. He checked it over before examining the energy cell that served as its ammunition and power source. A small red light next to the cell capacitor confirmed his fears that the cell was either nearing depletion or had a malfunction, and neither option sat well with the stallion. He cursed under his breath, switched the safety off, and stowed it in a holster on the outside of his coat.

From what he had experienced so far, he was hopeful that there would be no major encounters. The settlement certainly looked deserted, but the Wasteland had a fine way of throwing unexpected surprises around every corner.

Taking a few moments to scout the entirely of the ruins; he took note of the largest building present. It looked like an administrations building or some kind of important office. If there was anything worth hiding in this type of town, it would probably be located there.

So with a cautious step to him, Saffron judged the most direct route towards the building and set to it at a steady pace.

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@Dark Horse

Another sunrise over the Wasteland.

In a town which name she didn't know - the sign on the outskirts rusted away - in a house which haven't held a pony within it's walls for Heart knows how long, a lone figure was sitting on the carpet that was so dusted it might aswell be a sandbox, munching breakfast. Faint light from the cracks in the window shutters shed some news on the intruder.

A pony, mare to be exact. She seemed to be of average built, azure mane tied in a mix of a ponytail and a pointed fringe that made a hair curtain over her right eye. Burgundy coat, faded from all the dust around, looked a bit odd, like polished stone, while her eyes were like gemstones that lost their shine. Crystal Clear, for that was her name, finished her meal with a sigh, and walked outside.

In the morning light, more could be seen. For once, she was wearing a blu jacket - a Stable dweller's garment -although it clearly have seen better days, with strips of leather and metal studs covering the shoulders and sleeves, as well as the front of her chest. It won't stop a bullet but, better than nothing. A faded yellow pins with "35" were still attatched to her collar. A "Facehammer" 10mm pistol sat in it's holster, strapped to her barrel on the left side, and a simple rebreather mask on the right. She also wore leather sabblebags which took a simillar tretment as her jacket. A Cutie Mark of a flower - rose to be exact - with golden branches and leaves, and gem like blue flower. if one looked closer, there were also thorns.

Some say these are the most important.

The mare stretched her back, and walked lazily to a hidden cart she parked in an empty shed. Nothing fancy, just two wheels, metal all over, painted dull grey. She  glanced over it;s contents to see f everything's intact, and left it again, this time taking her steps to the center of the town.

"What a time to be alive..." - Crystal muttered humorlessly, as she stepped on the front step of the forst house. She will pick them clean of anything that's worth a cap, and head back to Hangpony Crossing to sell it. Funny, she didn't know of this place, just followed the river looking for a suitable crossing. Still, nightfall prevented any real exploration, as she had to barricade in the first house that looked okay-ish, and hope nothing ate her in her sleep.

Sometimes she wondered if it wouldn't be easier that way...

**************************

Some time later, and a few emptied houses later too, Crystal had a faint grasp of what happened in here. So there were ponies living in here, after the End, but sometime later they abandoned the town, but not in a hurry - there were no telltale signs of a panic evacuation, rather slow and methodical packing. and thank the Heart, no bodies. Crystal hated finding these. Still ,that meant she found precious little salvage, stacking it all neatly by the entrance and leaving the doors open before she moved to another one. She was getting close to the submerged part, and the sound of frogs were becoming audible. The stench of rotting wood too. She'll put on the mask later to block most of it.

 

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@Raven Rawne,

Saffron tried to keep as low a profile as he could on approach to the nameless ex-settlement, but there was an annoying number of obstacles which hampered a 'stealthy' approach, not least of which was the waterlogged state of the grounds that squelched constantly beneath him no matter how softly he tread, and he knew that it would only get worse the father he moved in. The stallion clicked his tongue as he endured the wet and muddy conditions. Having to deal with grime and gritty of the Wasteland was common in his line of work, some old-world ruins were particularly bad for it, but that didn't mean he had to enjoy it. It was often difficult enough keeping some semblance of hygiene as is, more-so when he was traveling for extended days at a time like this.

Still, he remained optimistic in his self-assurances that the town was void of any life. His reconnaissance from the cliff hadn't given him any reason to suspect otherwise. Whatever or whoever had called this place home was long gone, hopefully leaving behind some valuable salvage before whatever fate befell them.

And that was another thing keeping the stallion on edge. What had happened to them? Ordinarily he was very adept at spotting the tell-tale signs; discarded ammo casings, battle damage... or even bodies. And yet here, there was nothing. No story to tell, no sad remains of a failed defense, nothing. It was as though the inhabits had simply up and left. Abandoned suddenly, with no clear indication as to why. Had they feared the encroaching swamp and felt it had necessitated a retreat? Surely they could have simply pushed out towards the edge of town where the swamp lands had yet to reach and rebuild... It just didn't make sense to forsake what, to his eyes at least, seemed like a fairly defensible and sustainable position. He was surprised that nopony else had tried to reclaim it.

Passing a small, dilapidated shack, he peered in through its half-broken window. Nothing. A collapsed piece of roof had crashed straight through the floor and caused partial flooding, but asides from the subsidence, there didn't appear to be any kind of damage that would have indicated a battle...

*CRACK!* The nearby sound of a crash almost sent him jumping through his fur, and he rapidly spun around, drawing his Magic Energy Pistol in a panic and pointing it wildly to where he heard the noise, but the heavy, humid conditions and segregated nature of the town's layout across the swamp made it difficult for him to determine where it had precisely come from. Somewhere ahead, closer to the center of town, where the Admin building was situated.

Was it just another building collapsing into the swamp... or was he not alone here? Was it another Pony, or some other wasteland creature? There may be only one way to find out.

Steeling himself; he kept his pistol drawn and at the ready in case of an ambush, and carefully progressed further forward towards the town center. Light steps. He thought to himself, trying to make as little noise as possible across the wooden walkways. He was fairly certain that if something already had detected his presence, he was as good as dead. A hasty retreat would be nearly impossible in these conditions.

He rounded another abandoned home, this one sitting on south-east corner of the town square. Again, he took a glance inside via the windows. Strange. Looks to have been cleared out.. The room was almost completely empty of salvage and the door lay ajar, it's rotting surface providing an unpleasant aroma to Saffron's nose. Please don't tell me that this is a wasted effort...

Hugging the outside wall for cover; he moved down to the front edge of the house, and glanced his head around to provide him his first full view of the center square.

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@Dark Horse

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Crystal Clear stood before a wooden walkway leading over the water and into some of the more preserved buildings. Seems like whoever used to live here liked their chosen homes too much to move out to the unflooded part of town. She checked most of aforementioned structures, and while individually, the loot was bad, she will get some proper caps for the bulk sale.  And spread the word of the place,  maybe ponies will move in again?

Still, first she had to sweep it clean.  Crystal smirked humorlessly at that. Clean was a very relative term ever since... nah, this wasn't the time to dwell on that. She took a step and tested the wooden structure. It shook gently, but seemed to be stable enough for now. She sighed in relief through her rebreather mask - the stench of rot was hard to ignore and she decided to save her nostrils, seeing no pony's here. She couldn't keep it on and shoot at the same time... The chatter of frogs also drowned any other noises so she could just as well be deaf for all the good that her ears would do her right now.

Crystal slowly walked the wooden bridges, but soon found that some collapsed into the water, cutting off the path to some buildings. She'll have to rebuild them if she wanted the loot from there. Not like she was in a hurry though. Some structures weren't linked deliberately, collapsed or sitting at odd angles and obviously uninhabitable. The  worst thing was that most shops seemed to be situated in the swamped part,  so any pre-war goods they may contain were underwater or at least required of her to swim to them. Something she wasn't in the mood for today.  Still,  there was some kind of a public building nearby - now she saw the roof and the top floor above other structures. Worth checking out at least.

At some point,  her shaky wooden bridge was cut abruptly. Part of it fell into the water and while she could see it led further, there was no way to jump across.  And there was some weird, big, round... thing sitting in the middle of the gap.  Covered in moss and all the swamp could toss at it, there was no way of telling what it was. Maybe a rock? Cons to think of it, she saw other similar objects throughout the swamp. This one was out of reach, so she turned around to find another way to that public building.

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@Raven Rawne

Nothing.

Not a soul in sight. Dammit! The stallion was, for once, hoping to see someone, anyone, that could at least confirm to him the reason for the earlier crashing he had heard, but his view was too limited from this position. On top of that, the stench of wood-rot from the steadily increasing volume of submerged buildings was becoming quite overpowering to his nostrils, and he had no adequate means to protect himself from it. He was sorely wishing that he hadn't scraped that old re-breather for parts right now...

Moving on, and trying to take as little deep breaths as was possible, he made his way across to a larger structure. This one seemed to have suffered less damage then the others, and peering inside Saffron saw to his surprise that almost nothing looked as though it had been intentionally destroyed. It appeared to have been a town shop, and several hand-written signs hung above ominously empty shelves; their scrawling writing advertising things such as Weapons and Medical supplies, however without a trace of any such supplies to be seen. One or two items lay strewn either across the floor or had been left behind on the shelves, some of them clearly post-war in nature, suggesting to the Stallion that whatever had happened to this Settlement was still relatively recent..

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of yet another crash, this time mixed by the heavy splash of swamp water. Even the relentless noise of the frogs and other swamp creatures couldn't mask to Saffron how close this one had sounded, almost as if it was coming from right around the next walkway at the end of these buildings. He tensed up as he drew his weapon once again, expecting the worst to come around at him, as was his unfortunate habit. He suddenly realized that, judging from his current position, that particular bridge must lead up towards the Administrations building! The thought occurred to him that maybe some survivors were still alive. They could easily have holed up inside the large, defensible structure, and the noises he had heard could have been from somepony who had been sent to scout the area!

"Or..." Said Saffron quietly to himself, a pessimistic counter to his own unfounded optimism. "They could be bloodthirsty raiders who slaughtered the whole town and are now using it as a base."

He shook his head. Regardless of who or what it was, the only way to progress was forwards. He guessed that he would find out soon enough.

He tread carefully along the walkway towards the interconnecting one leading to the Admin's building, passing an almost completely collapsed house along the way. Sitting lonely on its remains was what looked like a fairly large rock, covered in moss and looking depressingly brown. He gazed in odd wonder at it as he walked by, musing how it had even gotten there. He was also near positive that he'd seen something just like it elsewhere in the town, in more than one place at that. He was half tempted to stop over and investigate when...

"Ooof!" The Stallion groaned as his hooves flew out from underneath him and he fell to the floor in a heap, the stench of the wooden walkway beams even more unbearable up close. He had been so distracted by that stupid rock, that he had neglected to even pay attention to the fact he had just completely and foolishly exposed himself to the adjacent walkway and whatever was on it! Good one, Saffron...

With the help of his front hooves, he lifted the upper part of his body from the floor, rather thankful that he hadn't become a creatures' lunch just yet, and instead found himself looking up at what had presumably sent him there in the first place.

It was a Pony. The unmistakable face staring back at him from behind a re-breather mask. "Heheheh..." He could only laugh weakly, not knowing if this encounter was about to be his last. "Well, I can see that one of us actually has their head screwed on straight this morning..." He had noticed too that his Energy Pistol was lying a few inches away from their hooves.

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@Dark Horse

Crystal Clear was getting sick of those walkways. They were narrow, rickety and she almost fell into the murky water a few times as the railings rotted away, providing no protection when the beams under hoof started moving. She cursed her luck when she almost went down with one of the walkways, resulting in a big noise and rapid heartbeat.  Still, she was okay so, maybe it wasn't that bad. But if anything was alive in here, they sure knew she was poking around...

The mare briefly considered removing her mask - she couldn't have it on and shoot - but judging from the snell that got through it, she would probably throw up if she did so. With waning interest, she pressed on through the wooden catwalks towards that big Admin building. Maybe there will be something worth her time there.

Crystal just walked out of a corner around a ruined house when she heard noise to her left - something fell on the floor, and not a Sparkle Cola for sure.  She tensed up and turned her head, craning her neck forward and squinting through the almost clean goggles. It was hard to see into the dark room at first, despite the obvious fact that she was staring through a collapsed wall, but...

"Well shit." -she cursed, but only a muffled sound escaped her mask. Another pony, sprawled on the ground as he was, but, being a unicorn,  he still had an advantage. Stupid forehead pokers. Crystal slowly raised a foreleg and tapped her pistol holster, signalling she's armed.  Then, very reluctantly,  took off the mask. No way to talk with in on her face, unfortunately...

The stench was appalling to her senses, and her eyes watered with tears for a moment, but she didn't earn a new hole in her skull so that was something. After the momentary distraction, she looked at the stranger again, this time using her sleeve to protect her nostrils. 

"Now we're both on the same level, *cough*. You live here? Thought the place was empty but I didn't lift anything..."

She really hoped she could talk her way out of this. The stallion could shoot her if she retreated, and - guess what - one of those weird stones ruined the path ahead! Although she could jump on it and then across,  probably... the Admin building was rather close too.

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@Raven Rawne

Saffron braced himself as the stranger didn't reply to his quip, instead bringing attention to their holster where a 10mm was kept. Not the most advanced of weaponry he thought, but at this distance it wouldn't matter. He eyed his own Energy Pistol that was still laying a few feet away. If he was quick enough with his telekinesis, perhaps he could...

But to his surprise and relief, the stranger didn't draw their weapon. Instead they slowly, and with an understandable reluctance, removed the re-breather around their face. It was a Mare, what looked to him at first like an Earth Pony, but she was like none he could recall ever encountering before. Her burgundy coat seemed almost to glint as though finely polished, and coupled with her blue-azure mane, she provided a pleasing contrast of colour against the surrounding dullness of brown of grey. It helped Saffron to relax, though he remained wary just in case.

The Mare looked to struggle slightly, the wood-rot obviously not very pleasing to her senses. Saffron thought he seen something... strange with her eyes too, but he couldn't really get a proper look, nor did he think it prudent to make it too obvious at this moment.

"Hah!" Saffron barked out a sharp laugh in response to her query. "No, fortunately not. Don't really have a home. I tend more to drift from place to place, following rumours, stories, whatever might lead me to something interesting, salvage or otherwise." The stallion, realizing that he was still half laying on the boardwalk, picked himself up from the floor. He noticed that a plank of the rickety bridge had completely snapped in two, presumably what had caused him to lose his footing, and kicked it out in frustration, sending it tumbling into the swamp below. "Piece of junk... well, I came here following one of those trails, but it seems to have been something of a wasted venture. Whole place seems to have been cleared out already, but I couldn't even find any obvious signs of a struggle." He glanced past the Mare's head, whom he was only slightly taller than, and tried to get a better look down the part of the catwalk where she had come from. "What's your story? I don't suppose you've... had any luck inside that large office back there? I was thinking of checking it out. Looks to be the only place still in fairly decent condition." He said with a certain air of caution, unsure whether or not this Mare had already figured to lay claim to whatever salvage was present. Despite this, she didn't appear to be ready for a fight. In fact, Saffron could have sworn that she looked almost ready to turn tail and gallop.

He snorted. A particularly strong whiff of rotten wood and... something, filling his nostrils. "Grrgh... in any case, it would be nice to get clear of this stench." Between dust storms and filthy, possibly poisonous swamp water, he was having enough of the current environments.

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@Dark Horse

Crystal tensed at the sudden outburst of laughter, but the strange stallion seemed quite talkative and, most importantly,  didn't pose an immediate threat. For now at least. The mare nodded as he talked, putting together a puzzle of provided information.

"Well..." She started, unsure how to reply.  "Sappy as it sounds, I'm looking for a place to call home. Again. Not much luck so far, though." She tapped her chin with a hoof, momentarily lowering the guard around her nostrils and immediately regretting it. "Come to think of this place is rather weird, yeah.  Whoever lived here had time to pack up, it's like they just... left. And those weird boulders all around the swamp, I haven't seen anything like it."

Crystal eyed the stallion in front of her, cocked her head a bit, thinking, then continued. "I was about to check that building too, and I think this walkway is the right one so... Maybe we go there together? Guess we can sort it out who takes the glorious pre-war loot when we find it, right? So far I found only junk at best." She then added abruptly, and humorlessly: "Just write Crystal Clear on my grave if I lose that gamble."

 

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@Raven Rawne

"A home...?" Saffron asked, raising an eye. "I would say that you're looking in the wrong place, but then who's to say what you consider... hospitable." The Stallion smirked as he tried to relax the conversation. The mare fortunately seemed to be cooperative, though perhaps it was just the difficulty of keeping the rotten stench at bay that prevented any real reaction. Saffron did his best to ignore it for now, and instead listened to the mare's explanation.

"Indeed.." He replied while looking around, as if trying to catch a glimpse of anything other oddities or events that may have occurred. "More worryingly, I haven't seen any sort of reason for the sudden departure. I mean, the swamp is pretty bad, yeah. But I suspect that has more to do with a lack of maintenance than anything. Can't imagine it was quite this bad before, when ponies were living here." He frowned, before adding: "So, why the sudden departure?"

The mare also brought attention towards the strange looking boulders that Saffron was sure had been spread around the town. "No idea. There's one blocking the path behind me. I thought perhaps it had just been thrown up by rising waters, but there's too many of them around for it to be a coincidence." He paused a moment to consider. "I hope that they weren't used for some kind of magic... but I suspect that somepony would have noticed if there had been any mass magical activity in the area recently." The Unicorn tapped his horn with a hoof. "The locals around these parts don't really appreciate magic users. I had to promise that I wouldn't get up to any spell-casting at the next settlement over. Still..." Saffron eyed his Magic Energy Pistol, still laying on the ground a few steps away, and concentrated as his horn lit up a soft crimson hue, capturing the weapon in a similar aura and telekinetically lifting it back into his holster. "Since there is nopony really here... Oh, don't give me that look!" He said as the mare cocked her head.

She didn't think much more of it, however, simply suggesting that the two of them head to explore the office building together. "Two sets of eyes are better than one." He agreed. "Let's just see what we can find out, if anything, regarding the fate of this sad little town. Then we can worry about the loot. Not that I'm holding my breath for anything at this stage."

He turned his head back towards the Mare as she at last gave him a name. "Crystal Clear, eh?" He seemed to ponder that for a moment, but continued without comment. "Saffron Shadow. Hopefully we can make it to the end of the day without having to write either of those on a gravestone. Not that there's any shortage of rocks about, eh?"

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@Dark Horse

The mare gave him an odd look, but nodded. "If you can haul them back on shore, yeah. And don't worry about magic around me, I used to live with unicorns most of my life." She pointed a foreleg at the wooden catwalk, then immediately placed it over her muzzle again. "That's the way, or so I think. Although one of those boulders ruined a part of it, so we better salvage some planks and put them on top of it to cross. Looks too slippery for my taste..."

Crystal looked around, and decided to head to a nearby house that was accessible through the bridge "network". She asked the stallion over her shoulder: "Maybe there's a dining table inside, we could use it if you help me carry. Hopefully there's also something long and sturdy, like an ironing plank, to cross the other half of the gap."

The house was in rather bad shape, to be honest. Standing slightly askew, with paint peeling off from all the moisture, wooden structure no doubt beginning to rot from the inside. But the roof looked okay, at least from thin angle, so maybe that's why they bothered witm making a crossing to it. Crystal reached the doors first, and tried to open them, but they didn't wantto budge. She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Why do they even lock these things?" She didn't wait for an answer, but spun around and gave them a good kick with a hindleg. Something shuddered inside, but the doors snapped open, together with some parts of their frame. She looked back at her newfound companion and smiled sheepishly. "Forgot my keys. Now let's see what's inside, eh?"

Turns out, not much.Most of the furniture and other items were gone, but, judging fro what was left, it was probably a storage area. Crystal slowly walked inside, looking around. She spoke aloud about her findings. "Lots of dust, no fresh prints... some grooves in the floor, like they pushed something heavy around... oh, bookshelves! Just the thing we need. Smash one in half and we have our bridge, the sides will do nicely." - she walked to the nearest one and inspected it closely, trying to anticipate if it would hold a pony or not. Finally, Crystal added. "...mmmayyybe smash two. Just to be sure." Then, she looked back at the stallion and adressed him: "Anything catch your eye? If it's any consolation, we're the first ones to pick this place after whoever lived here left. Which makes me kind of curious why they did it in the first place - I've seen worse places where ponies lived. Much worse."

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@Raven Rawne,

Stepping forward to take a closer look, Saffron saw the damage that Crystal had mentioned. Nothing too substantial, fortunately, but still enough that it would keep them from simply jumping across. The stallion didn't fancy taking a plunge into the swamp were he to misjudge it. "Alright. Let's see what we can scrounge up...".

It didn't take them long to locate what they needed. Whilst there wasn't much in the way of any valuable loot to be found, there was still plenty of scrap parts and building materials. Crystal pointed out a particularly damaged looking house; not the place Saffron would bother searching for loot normally, but, as the Mare pointed out, it might just have something they could use to get across. He nodded to her and approached the front door.

"Locked?" He asked as Crystal tried the doors to no avail. Even having supposedly fled their town in mass, these darn ponies always had to lock up tight behind them. He would have suggested simply climbing in through a broken window or damaged wall, but the burgundy Mare had other ideas. With a solid kick of her hind leg, the door shook hard and then snapped open, its rotten frame providing little physical resistance to the forced entry. "Oh, I'm sure they won't mind..." he replied to her with a smirk. "After you." He gestured her inside, and took a quick glance around to ensure that nothing had reacted to their sudden entry. The town remained eerily quiet... Satisfied, Saffron turned to follow his companion inside.

It was hard to see from its current state how this would have been a home at all. A large, mostly empty area that looked as though it had just been evicted and left for the birds. It looked like the kind of run down building that he would expect to see squatters living in. Saffron's hope for a bit of relief from the wood-rot wasn't much better either, and he groaned audibly as he was welcomed by a face full of dust. "Not you again..."

Crystal wasn't listening, she was too busy taking note of what was left, among other observations. Whilst she pondered, Saffron went towards the back of the house, and found a small side room with its door ajar, behind which was what looked to be maybe a kind of food storage? There were several barrels, almost all of which were empty, and a few of them tied around with thick, sturdy looking ropes to help suspend them. Saffron peered into one of the barrels and saw what appeared to be a large amount of... seaweed? It definitely looked like something that had come from the swamp. Does this mean that they had been able to use it as a resource? The stallion frowned; if that was the case, then why choose to leave? This settlement could have been perfectly self-sustainable...

He proceeded back to the main room, where Crystal was examining a couple of old looking, but still intact bookshelves. "Yep. Those should do nicely." He agreed, coming over to the shelves and giving one a few tugs and presses. "A little worn down, but in no worse shape than the boards outside." He concurred. "It shouldn't take too much force to break the sides off from the rest."

Saffron glanced around and found a small iron girder that looked as though it might have once belonged to some pre-war industrial machine. "Well, it's not a crowbar... but it should be enough." Holding it within his magic aura, the Stallion smashed the girder down hard against the bookshelf, severing one of the shelves and sending it crashing off with a thud. "Here, lend me a hoof. It's a great stress release if anything!" He said with a wide and somewhat villainous looking grin. "Hey, it's not often I have an excuse to smash things." He followed up quickly with a smirk. "Oh, and I found some barrels in a back room there, with a bit of rope would you believe? Most of them are empty so if we needed something to act as a ballast, those could be handy."

Addressing Crystal's own curiosities over why the former occupants might have just gone up and left, he added; "That's true... compared to some settlements across the Wasteland, this place is a paradise. ...like when I was back in Manehattan--" He caught himself at that word, shook his head, and continued: "Anyway, one of the barrels looked as though the settlers might actually have been using the Swamp as a resource. If that's true, then we can probably cross it off the reasons why they might have left. I'd see no sense in abandoning such a valuable commodity if you had it, even if it is a little... unsanitary." The stallion shook some dust from his coat. "C'mon, we better get to the offices and see if it can tell us anything more!"

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@Dark Horse

Crystal observed Saffron as he took his turn to inspect the bookshelf. "Yeah, should be good enough, and easy to pull apart. Now we just need to - hey!" - she shelded her eyes from the dunst and splinters that started flying all of a sudden, when Saffron hit the shelf with some piece of metal. Once the initial surprise passed, she let out a small laugh and shook her head. "You have NO idea! I always end up doing property damage when I'm angry." She shind her Stable pins, habitually apparently, and took a step back as the stallion was working. Soon enough they had four planks at hoof.

 Her ears perked up at the news of barrels and rope. "Oooh? If they're in good shape, I know a pony who would give a half decent price for them! And rope is always in demand. So they didn't take eveything that wasn't nailed down then, good, good..." Before she could indulge in her scavenger's musings, Saffron spoke up again, and she cocked her head as he mentioned the ruined metropolis - more so how he did so, but she wasn't one to pry. With a quick nod, she grabbed two planks and slid them on her back, and supported with a foreleg. It was a bit awkward but, she got used to lugging building materials. The pair left the buildong and Crystal sneezed from all the dust and the renewed assault of the swamp air. "Uuugh, why those stupid masks are made so you can't talk in them? Anyway, they could actually make some buch off this place, the way I see it. I saw ponies making compost from rotting plants, good for growing crops. Maybe they could make some kind of rope stuff out of it too, who knows. And if they had water purifiers, they could sell clean water too. Not bad if I may say so, if you can't smell a thing that is." She went second this time, reasonong that the unicorn would have it easier with laying the planks with his magic, then handed her materials when he laid out the first ones, and shook off the dust off her reinforced Stable suit. And of course shined the pins.

Crystal looked over Saffron at the rickety crossing, and smiled. "Wanna flip a cap on who goes first?"

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@Raven Rawne

Saffron nodded as the two heaved up an equal sharing of planks to take out. "We can come back for the barrels and rope if we need it. No sense in lugging the extra weight around, especially when we're crossing these planks." The stallion helped to stabilize Crystal's planks as they got them out of the ruined house, he had an easier time with his own thanks to his magic.

The stench of the surrounding swamp quickly filled his nostrils once again, prompting an annoyed grunt. "Hey, at least you had one to bring." He said in response to Crystal's complaint. "I had one myself for a while, but I needed a particularly scarce part from the air filter to help keep my energy pistol going. Damn stabilizer..."

They continued on, whilst the mare mused over the potential produce a settlement like this might be capable of, sharing Saffron's sentiments regarding its sustainability. "After a while, I'm sure you wouldn't even notice the smell. Compared to most of the crap that this world forces us to endure, I'd take a bit of bad air any day."

It wasn't a far walk back to the busted part of the walkway, where the lone boulder sat separating the two halves, as though it had just fallen from the sky and smashed the catwalk clean down the middle. "Hrm.." The stallion inspected it from the distance. Why did it look so familiar to him? He gave it a few cautious taps with one of the planks and tried to brush off some of the seaweed stuck to it before turning back, satisfied. "Sorry." He smiled sheepishly to his companion. "It looks fine anyway, we should be able to step across no problem with these." The stallion set out his own two planks rather easily with his magic, they wouldn't need to lay the other two until one of them got over to the boulder on the other side, meaning whoever went first would have to carry them across. As they finished up, he seen Crystal brushing up those pins yet again. "A memento of the Stable, eh?" He asked.

With their rough bridge at the ready, all that remained was to choose who went first. It barely looked steady enough to hold even one of them, let alone two. Still, Crystal didn't seem too deterred as she threw a joke. "Well, ordinarily I'd say ladies first." He smirked back to her. "Buuuuuuut... I suppose since my magic should give me an easier time with the planks, I'll bite the bullet this time and try it out. Let's make sure that it will hold one of us before we get too excited. Just do me a favour and keep this side of the bridge steady.."

Taking a deep breath to centre himself, the stallion placed a hoof on one of the laid out planks and tested it. The wood creaked and groaned, but otherwise stayed intact. "Ugh..." He grunted as he picked up the remaining two planks with his magic, hold them at a reasonable distance to the side. True, it was easier than physically lifting them, and meant that extra weight wasn't being applied to the bridge, but the weight of the planks still caused him some mental strain, making it that bit more difficult to concentrate as he crossed.

The makeshift bridge continued to groan as he slowly progressed. It was only a short few steps across, but he didn't want to rush it. Not while trying to keep half his concentration on the planks he was carrying. Then when he was over half way across, the bridge suddenly shifted from the boulder's side! "Woah... shit!" Saffron yelled as his balance was completely thrown off. He leaped from the planks to stop himself tumbling into the swamp below, and luckily landed with a thump of his hooves onto the boulder. He carefully dropped the two planks he was carrying next to him, and sat for a moment, exhaling heavily. "Phew...! What in Tartarus was that? I swear those damn planks just moved on their own! Tell me I didn't imagine that!" He glanced back, and cursed at what he saw. The planks had fallen into the swamp! He could just see the end of one sticking out from above the muddy water, but the other was nowhere to be seen, probably sunk. It had effectively isolated him on top of the boulder between the two halves of the catwalk. "Well.. that didn't quite go to plan." He shouted back over to Crystal. "I'll have to use the other planks from here to get you across, then we can put them on the other side once we're both over." Saffron carefully levitated the two remaining planks back across to where Crystal waited, then kept them held firmly in place with his magic. "Just to make sure they don't do that again." He explained to her, standing at his end of the planks for extra insurance. "C'mon! Lets get moving before something else tries to make this difficult for us!" He added with a frustrated tone.

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@Dark Horse

The mare smiled back and made an elaborate inviting gesture towards the half completed "bridge. "Why thank you mister, I'll make sure to toss you some rope if you suddenly decide to take a swim in this charming place..." She then stepped on the planks with her forelegs to hold them tight on the spot, and observed intently as her companion took his steps on the makshift crossing,

Out of nowhere, the stallion lost his balance and, with a fitting cry, leaped onto the boulder. Sadly he also upset the planks so much that they slipped from under the mare's hooves, sending her forward with their momentum. Luckily she landed in a way that left her forelegs dangling above the murky water, rather than face first into it. Still, her nose was suddenly too close to the source of the stench and she reflexivly rolled onto her side and frantically crawled back, away from the end of her bridge. With an angry face, she looked up at the stallion - who suddeny became trapped on the boulder - and growled. "What the FUCK was THAT, Saffron?!" His shocked question have her pause, however, and the mare looked down at the water. Sure enough, a circle was expanding on it, with the boulder in it's center. "Well for once you're right, that big thing DID move... Probably sunk deeper into the mud once your weight pressed down on it." She stood up and discovered that the two planks they used were effectively gone, leaving them with the two Saffron had next to him. "Just great..." She murmured, but the stallion had a plan B, it seemed. Crystal approached the newly set planks and gave them a lookover. Sure, they were held both by Saffron's magic and hooves, so it's not like she could have more reassurance then that but...

His frustrated call to get moving made her roll her eyes, but the crystal pony did as he said. Slowly, she tested the planks and crossed the gap, one step at the time, with slightly bent knees to compensate in case the damn thing sunk again. It didn't and she soon was right next to the stallion with a victorious smirk on her face. "See? That wasn't so hard. Now onto the next side... I think you can go first." She shrugged at the last comment, but couldn't enjoy the effects of her snarky remark because the boulder moved again.

Upwards.

Crystal barely held her balance on the slimey surface, and cursed loudly to mark her disapproval. "How can it go UP?! It doesn't make sense! Ahh, forget it, let's just cross that bridge and get away from this blasted rock already! Lay them down if you may?" - she pointed at the stallion and then on the other side of the gap.

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@Raven Rawne

With the planks in place and Saffron taking extra assurance to keep the makeshift bridge firmly stuck to both ends, it fortunately wasn't as much trouble for Crystal to traverse her way across, giving the stallion a rather triumphant look and snarky comment as she did so. "Yeah, yeah..." Saffron grumbled, brushing off her remark. "I'm telling you that something moved... maybe this hunk of rock isn't as secure as it looked." He said, glancing over into the swamp to see if there was anything swimming around in it that might have bumped into them. Nothing. He turned to reply to his companion, but before he could...

"Oh! What the...?!" He yelled as the boulder once again shifted, not to either side this time, but up! Saffron felt himself rise a few inches as the both of them struggled to maintain their grip on the slippery, slimy surface, and he was forced to grab the two remaining planks with his magic in order to stop them sliding off the edge. Crystal clearly wasn't enjoying the sensation either, a string of expletives leaving her muzzle, and protesting loudly over how this rock now seemingly had a mind of its own. "You don't have to ask me twice!" He concurred in haste, and tried quickly to put the planks in place across the other side.

Their sudden shifting meant that the planks were now only barely reaching across, and Saffron found it annoyingly difficult to position them correctly. He slammed his ends down onto the rock in frustration after almost half a minute of trying to sort them, with the opposite ends just barely managing to reach the other side. "Ugh! Screw it, this will have to do. Might have to jump it near the end, but the gap is small enough that I think--"

He didn't finish. At that moment, the rock they were standing on shook violently, and all of a sudden seemed to rise up out of the swamp! Saffron just managed to save the planks from taking another tumble, before he heard what sounded like a gargling, angry roar. It was coming from right beneath them, and before he had any time to realize what was going on, another huge lurch from the 'boulder' sent the two ponies flying! Saffron yelled as his body was launched through the air, his magical grip lost on the planks as they too were forcefully thrown from the sudden release. The momentum was strong enough that it actually propelled him clear of the gap they'd been trying to cross and landed him with a crash and roll to the other side. The adventure had left him disoriented, and it took a little moment to find himself, groaning and spitting the dirt from his mouth. Fortunately, it didn't feel as though he had broken anything...

He rolled over, picked himself up, and stared back towards the gap they had just traversed in an unorthodox fashion.

The 'boulder' was now gone. In its place glaring down at them, looking evidently displeased at being treated as such, was a huge crab-like creature. It's enormous pincers and razor sharp claws protruded from under its hard gray shell, while its beady brown eyes that could just be seen were unflinching as it sized them up, as if waiting for one of them to make the first move.

"MIRELURK!!" Saffron shouted, as he scrambled to retrieve his weapon.

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@Dark Horse

The mare impatently looked as the stallion tried to put the makeshift crossing together, and she tapped her hoof into the boulder as she did so. However, as he was just about to step on the planks he laid out, the rock started moving again, and violently this time. Crystal suddenly felt acceleration in her stomach, just like when she traveled an elevator up - but elevators never catapulted her into the air! Before she could do anything, she was in the air and, unable to make sense of her situation, landed back on the boulder like a sack of grain.

"I swear I'm gonna- what the?!" - Crystal Clear suddenly realised that Saffron Shadow was on the other end of the crossing, and looked positively shaken. She herself was looking from a higher vantage then earlier, despite laying on her stomach. And... whatever it was that was beneath her, was moving about like it was alive! Saffron shouted something that made no sense to her, but didn't move, so Crystal asked him, confused. "Mire-what? Is this some kind of rock or?"

Her voice and attempts to stand up apparently displeased the "Mire-what", and it tried to shake her off it's back. Crystal tried to remain on top of it for a bit but when it stepped closer to the end of the bridge that Saffron was at, she decided to take a leap off the damn thing, and landed ungracefully on the wooden construction, causing something underneath to snap. The water behind her stopped sploshing madly and the mare decided to take a peek over her shoulder, still dizzy from the rough ride. She didn't say anything as the creature, who's features she had on display right before her, turned around and started approaching them, snapping it's pincers and readying it's claws and mandibles. Instead, Crystal's eyes went wide and she scrambled on her hooves, and started running as fast as she could. She did shout at the stallion as she passed him, however: "Run, Saffron, Run!" The admin building was close now - it was made of concrete, and hopefully had small doors so the creature would stay outside as they took refure inside. Or so she hoped at least.

Judging from the splashing water and breaking wood, the Mirelurk was close behind them - Crystal could also hear the stallion running too, but didn't dare look back to confirm it. The wooden crossings underneath her hooves shook and bent from the assault of the creature behind them. Finally, after what seemed like a marathon, but in reality didn't last a hundread meters, she could see the entrance - two sets of doors, thankfully normally sized and separated by a concrete collumn. The revolving doors were takend down, so they didn't have to open anything on the way in. Crystal barged inside without as much as a thought, and soon after heard a loud thud as the Mirelurk tried to repeat this stunt, but found itself like, three times too big.An angry roar-like sound and repeated thuds confirmed her suspicion, and she stood in the hallway, panting hard and only now looking back where she came from. Saffron also made it, but for now she as more concerned with the beast that glared at them with raging fury as it tried to ram itself into the building and reach them with it's appendages.

Crystal approached Saffron and with a shaky voice, asked: "Y-you okay? That was a close one... and it's still not giving up! I doubt my gun can do anything to it really, maybe poke his eyes out if he stood still for a bloody moment!" - She snapped at the end of that sentence and gave the beast an equally angry look.

It didn't seem impressed.

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@Raven Rawne

Saffron would've dearly loved to have assured Crystal that the Mirelurk was "just a rock", but he barely had time to speak a word before the creature was shaking wildly in an attempt to remove the pony from its back. To her credit, the Mare clung on as best she good, but soon took her chance and leaped, landing rather clumsily beside Saffron as he shifted eyes between her and the Mirelurk. By now the Stallion had drawn his magic energy pistol and was holding it in his own magical grasp, the weapon pointed dead straight at the creature's face. For now however, he held his fire. He had hoped that with the two of them off, the Mirelurk might stand down and leave them be.

Sadly, it wasn't that easy.

Instead, now that the creature was free of its unwelcome 'visitors', it began to approach on them slowly, its hostile intent becoming all to clear to Saffron as his muscles tensed. Crystal seemed to have picked up on this as well, because she scrambled past him as quickly as her hooves would carry her, yelling towards Saffron to do the same. The stallion hesitated for a moment, but then realized: "The admin building!". Such a centralized structure would hopefully be reinforced or at the very least defensible in some way. In any case, it was a superior option to staying out here where they had no chance of escaping on the confusing, damaged walkways.

Resisting the urge to shoot the creature, he'd probably just piss it off anyhow, he darted backwards and began galloping after his companion, who was already several steps ahead of him. Fortunately, he had modified his combat armour to be more lightweight for quick escapes like this, and so wasn't as weighed down as he might have been, but he could still hear the Mirelurk keeping close behind, its spider-like legs able to keep it moving at a fairly reasonable pace despite its size. Judging from the sounds of splintering wood and heavy splashing, the catwalks were being smashed to bits as it traversed them.

He could soon see the entranceway of the building, with Crystal already darting her way inside a narrow doorframe to the inside. Hot on her tail, Saffron dived through the opening and found himself sliding to a halt across an old, largely cracked marble floor. Before he had any time to get antiquated with his surroundings however, he was startled by the sound of a loud bang behind him and the angry roar of the Mirelurk. Turning to face it; Saffron saw that the creature was struggling to force itself through the obviously too small frame of the entrance. One pincer was reaching through, snapping wildly, but unable to make any sort of gain on either of them. For the moment, it seemed, they were safe.

"Yeah... I think so..." The stallion replied to Crystal, checking himself over. Seeing that the Mare was looking shaken, he stamped the ground with a hoof and cursed, adding: "Sorry Crystal... How could I be so stupidly forgetful? Swamps are perfect gathering grounds for Mirelurks. Mutated sea creatures." He explained. "They tend to sleep for long periods at a time, and I bet that all those other boulders I seen around the town were even more of them in hibernation. This whole settlement is probably overrun with them! I just hope that this one hasn't caused the whole batch to wake up..." He said nervously. He hadn't actually encountered that many Mirelurks on his travels, but he had done enough research and piecing together of information from others to have a good idea of their capabilities.

Crystal seemed to give the beast an angry look of her own, but Saffron held a forehoof before her. "Don't give it any reason to be even more angry at us or it might just burst its way through the wall.." He said with an anxious whisper, as the Mirelurk gave another yell in protest at them. "Look, you're good at finding your way around buildings, aren't you? I think we should try and make our way to the second floor, maybe get a better view of what we're dealing with here. Heck, if we can get onto the roof, even better! We could maybe find survivors if we're lucky.. He said in a somewhat optimistic tone, though even he had to admit that was fading rather rapidly given the current situation.

He then turned to face Crystal, smiled innocently, and asked "Unless you'd rather have a Plan B?".

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@Dark Horse

The mare drooped her ears as the stallion advised her not to make the matters worse with her temper, and his words about a whole bunch of these things napping within rifle range didn't do good to her courage at all. She took another glance at the furious creature, and backed away slightly as it delivered another slam into the wall with it's heavy shell.

"I, uhh..." - she looked around to finally take in her surroundings. The hall was stripped of furniture, so they were effectively in a bathtub of marble, concrete, and fading patriotic War-Era posters. Not the best she could hope for, although at the end of the hallway, there was a reception, flanked by two elevators. The latter were obviously useless but the recepcion was fitted woth a solid wooden counter table, most assuredly hard fixed to the floor. Any file cabinets hidden behind it were too heavy to move anyway... but one object caught her eye.

"Mmmmaybe give it a lesson on Equestrian patriotism, eheh?" - She pointed on a flagpole with a faded flag of Equestria on it. Atop the hardwood pole was a spear tip, although she expected it to be just decoration. "You do the honors though, it's not my flag." She pointed out for some reason.

Another loud thud spooked her, now that she was standing with her back to the Mirelurk and didn't see it coming. "Okay okay, kidding! Geez... come on, there are arrow signs by the reception, no doubt one will point to the stairs." The mare trotted towards the appointed target, all too eager to put more distance between her and the beast, and tapped her holster as if checking if it was still holding her unimpressive armament. Crystal Clear squinted her eyes and tried to read the fancy print, pockmarked by decay as it was...

"Uhhh, restrooms! Nah, not now... office for this, office for that, oh, town council! Second floor worth checking out. And the Mayor;s office on third too." She looked for something more tangible though. "Stairs, that's right, to the left then. Come on, let's give our new buddy some private space."

While there were corridors leading brom both sides of the hallway, Crystal guessed that the building wasn't actually symmetrical. they passed some doors, most were closed but some were open or even missing While she wasn't really looing for goodies right now, she galnced inside a few times and was met with drab offices with nothing interesting striking her at first sight. Soon enough, they reached the staircase, accompanied by those loud, echoing slams. Although they were getting less frantic, so that was something. Maybe the creature was loosing steam?

"Okay, up we go, and then let's find a window to look out if any more of them are struftting about all of a sudden."

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@Raven Rawne

Saffron took a step back in unison with Crystal as the Mirelurk made yet another unsuccessful attempt to force its enlarged form through the doorframe. Thank Celestia that this building was made of sturdier stuff than most of the settlement, though it really should have come as little surprise. During his travels, Saffron had noticed that many important pre-war structures looked to have been specifically built to withstand a lot of punishment. Probably a precaution against attack or some crap like that, the reasons hardly mattered now. Still, he was quite glad for it at the present moment. He'd have rather not become Wasteland lunch.

Fortunately, Crystal seemed to have taken his advice on board, and was surveying the immediate floor. "Hngh!" He snorted against her witty remark on the Equestrian flagpole. Though he had no particular feelings towards the flag it bore, the nation it represented having effectively ceased to exist long ago, he did feel certain that the aged spear tip would have little luck penetrating the Mirelurk's thick shell armour, unless he was able to strike a soft spot such as his face. The stallion also raised a querying eye at her off-hoof mention of it not being "her flag", but before he could press on that...

*BOOF!* The Mirelurk made another heavy bash into the doorframe, and several inches of dust and possibly other material fell from the ceiling. Not willing to sit around all day and see if the creature actually could make it through or not, Saffron followed Crystal towards the reception area.

While she read over the faded directory, Saffron utilized his magic to grab the flagpole from the behind the desk. Removing the Equestrian flag, he loosely wrapped it around the centre of the flagpole, acting like some form of decoration. He then kicked out the base stand, leaving him with what looked like a fairly ornate spear. Crude, but perhaps a useful melee weapon for close quarters. Just in case.

"The mayor's office, huh?" He repeated as Crystal listed off various rooms across the building. "Could have a few records leading up to what happened. Might be able to learn something." Pausing to consider a thought for a moment, he added: "Could also have a town stock record. Y'know.. find out if they've got any interesting loot stashed away here. Heheheh.." He knew that right now there were more pressing issues at hoof, but he couldn't resist the urges of his scavenger nature. In any case, their destination was the second floor. He let Crystal take point while he watched their backs for any sudden activity from the Mirelurk.

The two ponies passed door after door as they proceeded down a long corridor towards the staircase. Saffron could only glance into rooms as they did so, but nothing immediately caught his interest. They all looked quite cleared out actually. "Tch... was there anything that they didn't take with them?" He grumbled, as he glanced by a room that seemed to literally have nothing left in it at all, door included. "Oh look! The restrooms are still there!" He added with feigned enthusiasm. A couple of times the stallion poked through some over-turned over filling cabinets and desks with his makeshift spear, but found little of interest beyond some various office appliances and empty bottles of Sparkle Cola. "Could sure go for one of those right now..." He said dejectedly, kicking the empty bottle back down the corridor with his hind hoof.

Once they had finally reached the staircase, Crystal took the initiative with the plan. "Yes sir.." Saffron replied in a sarcastic but also genuinely surprised manner. He had never really explored like this with a partner before. Normally he worked alone, laid out his own plans and moved at his own pace, but the experience with her so far had proven to be... interesting.

Behind them, the distant thuds of the Mirelurk were becoming less frequent, but still enough to let them know that it hadn't managed to get through yet. Good news, he supposed, but as they ascended the staircase, his premature optimism was soon to be turned back upside down.

The second floor was dominated by a large, empty hall area, where a number of doors branched off into what he assumed were the administration offices. One of them must the the Mayor's office and the town council. Shouldn't be too hard to determine which. Looking behind, he saw a set of three large windows that overlooked into the outside, giving a good view of the settlement from around the area they had come from originally. He trotted over to it for a better look.

"...Ah, crap." He said wearily as his heart sank from what he saw. "Crystal! You had better come and see this!" He called out to his companion.

There wasn't just one or two Mirelurks in the settlement, there were several of them. Saffron counted at least 9 of the buggers, but he had a horrible suspicion that there were even more out of sight, or perhaps lurking in the swamp. Most of them were wandering around the catwalks, some were swimming on the swamp's surface. Others had taken to rummaging through the scraps left behind in buildings or whatever junk they could find, and one in particular seemed to be attempting to dismantle the partially destroyed wall of a house. The only solace that Saffron took from this sight is that, so far at least, none of them appeared to be approaching or even showing any interest in the admin building, despite the ruckus.

"Shit." The stallion spat out whilst he seemed to be trying to analyse the situation fully. "This might make getting out difficult. We'll be completely cut off unless we can find a way around or, I dunno... get them to move maybe? I don't think either of us have the firepower to take on all of them." He said with a frown, and then turned to face Crystal. "We'd better find out what we can. Who knows if there's maybe another way some of them could get in here? We'll be in trouble then.. Let's check the Mayor's office!"

Fortunately, the door to the Mayor's office was labeled with a slightly faded though still legible plaque: "Mayor S. Crown". "How fitting..." Saffron remarked as he tried the handle. "Locked. Any chance I could borrow your keys again?" He smirked to Crystal.

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@Dark Horse

The mare gave him a weird look and shook her head, then trotted up the stairs. The upper storey welcomed them into a large hall, empty of course. There were doors and a smaller corridor leading further in, and she was about to get closer to read the plaques when Saffron called her over. Crystal approached the windows - they were rather nice, she liked tall windows - and peered through dirty glass outside, onto the sunken part of town.

"Well Heart preserve me..." She said in a distant tone, taking in the view. And counting the 'Lurks. Saffron voiced his concerns and she bit her lip in thought, but apparently this wasn't the time to play philosopher. Crystal dragged her hooves with some resignation as she followed her companion, stroking her chest for some reason, her chances of getting out alive considerably lowered. The off remark about the mayor's name made the mare snicker humorlessly. "I bet they change their names after taking the office, there's no other explanation."

Saffron found himself restricted from entering the office by a lock in the door, however, and stepped away to let her do her trick again. Crystal shrugged and approached the doors, and set to work. "Never broke down the door? Or maybe you're afraid of traps, huh? Anyway, first you put your weight on the locked doors to see if they budge." She did as she said. "Then, if they stay closed, give them a good measured kick just under the lock - the middle one if they have several - and repeat until they let go. Like so." Crystal took a step away and spun around, adding momentum to her buck. These doors were made of sturdier stuff, and needed a repeat, but even then they opened only halfway, stopped by something on the other side. "Practical exam on the next ones?" She said with a raised eyebrow and directed her attention to her handiwork. "No traps for once... but something's - uhhh..." - She poked head in and sighed deeply, her shoulders dropping with her breath. "Come on in, and better open a window too... I'll never get used to it..."

The doors were barred by a file cabinet that was laying sideways, it's drawers opened and the documents in disrray. There were more of these, and clearly somepony looked for something very urgently through them. So much that they made a huge paper mess. But perhaps more importantly - and more distressingly - they were no longer alone. In a way. A stallion was seated behind the Mayor's desk, leaned back and illuminated by one of those tall windows directly behind him. An elderly fellow, earth pony on first glance, but there were two troubling things about him. For once, he was dead, and for a while now - he already started to smell and look all around bad. Crystal couldn't see any wounds or blood, but he had a nasty grimace, like he was electrocuted to death or something. Which led to the other disturbing discovery - resting atop his temples was a crown like object, made of unpainted metal, with some cables and a clearly visible magic energy containement gem, now shattered and coated with black ooze.

"What the hay is that...? I've never seen anything like it. A-any thoughts on that, Saffron? Looks freaky to me, just as if it... killed him. Painfully so." She lowered her head and sighed. "I wish we could bury him at least, but we'll be dead the moment we set hoof outside. So, what did you want from here? Ah, the records, right... Should be around here, somewhere. I-I'll start looking through these papers, see if here's anything useful."

The mare dived into the stacks of loose papers strewn all over the floor, but couldn't help but eye the Maor's remains from time to time, and that wicked crown of his.

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@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.

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@Dark Horse

Crystal Clear sifted through the documents strewn all over the floor. Mostly gibberish to her, so it obviously were the town records of some sort. And if the dates were right, some were decades old! Apparently ponies made a community here for generations, and even made some rudimentary attempts to install a form of local goverment. Heartwarming, to say the least - all around the ultimate measure of power and justice was gun caliber... 

As Saffron moved closer to the Mayor's remains to examine his peculiar crown, Crystal Clear couldn't help but glance with some uncertainty. Whatever it was, it clearly malfunctioned and Heart knew what it was supposed to do in the first place. "Careful..." - She urged as he took a look at it, but resumed her yet fruitless search on the floor, if only to avoid seeing the deceased stallion. Corpses always did that to her, even back at home...

The thought made her sigh deeply, and run a hoof over her pins. Sometimes she wondered why she even kept this getup, useless as it was, and only raised more eyebrows at her. She stirred from her daydream after hearing her comapnion call out to her, and looked up, confused at first. "Whaa? Oh, right. Well they did awful lot of paperwork, and for decades too, so, that's one thing to note. Damn shame the place was wiped out... But on a more tangible note, whoever trashed this office clearly looked for stuff, so while birth certificates and other documents may be interesting to some, I think there's one more place worth checking." - she pointed at the desk, and approached it from the mayor's side. "Help me move the chair away, will ya? Heart, Ill never get used to this..." She winced once came so close to the corpse, and even more so as they moved the chair away from the desk. But, with one problem out of the way, the access to drawers was open, and that's what the mare was after. "Figured they could be left alone based on how he was seated." She opened the first one, but it had mostly some salvaged writing utensils, and clean paper sheets. The second one contained a pipe revolver, but no spare ammo beyond the five rounds in it. "They always keep some surprises in those desks, don't they?" However, before she tossed the small cabinet on the other side of the desk ioen, something caught her eye. "Waaait..." The mare took out the shelf and put it on the desk proper, and took a closer look at it. With a smirk, sheput it upside down, and a wooden thud was heard. Then Crystal raised the upturned drawer into the air, they saw a notebook resting atop a fake drawer bottom. "Clever one. I used to have something simillar, but much more sophisticated. And I didn't hide my secret diary in there..."

The small closet turned out to hide a bottle of something that could be alcohol, but there was no label on it. still nthat didn't dissuade the mare from pulling the cork and taking a whiff. "Uhh, strong stuff. Think I found my glorious loot right here.". She rubbed the bottle affectionately, but paused to take care of more pressing matters, and put it on the desk next to the revolver. "Any luck with that notebook, hmm?"

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@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.

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@Dark Horse

While the stallion read the diary, the mare decided to look around some more. Her ears perked up as she heard Saffron exclaim a few times, and he seemed to be very engrossed in his read, and concerned too. Still, Crystal kept searching. Unfortunately, there wasn't much left. Lots of papers, sure, and some records were clearly missing, if the empty drawersdrawers were any indication. One big wardrobe cabinet was shut, of course... Crystal Clear was inspecting it closely to determine the best way to get it open when Saffron finished reading. Judging from the way he tossed it aside, it wasn't good news. She rolled her eyes at the motion of sharing the bottle's contents, but sat down to listen to his reiteration of the journals contents.

When he was finished, the mare simply slid the bottle his way across the desk. Her shoulders were slumped and her coat seemed a tad matted, compared to her looks from just a few minutes ago. Crystal sighed and rose up. "There's only one place I haven't stuck my nose in yet. That big cabinet - closed. Now that I know what's inside, I need to be careful. Could use a crowbar or a big screwdriver at least..." The mare tapped her chin in concentration, staring at the locked wardrobe. It would be easy with her tools! After a bit, her hoof missed the chin and tapped the forehead as she got an idea. "Of course! Saffron,  can you use your magic to yank the doors open?  The lock is probably just a tiny thing, it'll come apart if you pull real hard on it. I will hold the cabinet in place. Sounds like a plan?" 

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@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.

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