private New Pegas

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Solstice heard Chip walked out of the general store and calmly said to Chip, "This is just a misunderstanding, ya see, I didn't have time before to tell Eclipse about our deal, and I just helped her loot only Corn and a pegasus. Tell ya what, "you get the keep all of the items from them she tried to sell, including the reinforced armor the Corn had on, that Eclipse still has on her. The armor she has is worth 3-4 times that amount. What do ya say?"

After Chip yelled and waved a gun at her, then ran out, Eclipse waited a bit before she slipped a bullet out of the five rifles and pocketed it, then she headed outside to talk with her sister. 

Edited May 20, 2020 by reader8363

[Illiad Easle 3,238]

(Eclipse is sneaky I'll give her that.)

Chip stared Solstice down for a bit, looking to see if she were telling the truth, before snorting and turning away, "This one accepts, but Chip will be keeping a close eye on you two." With that he holstered his gun and returned to the store with the armor he had thrown down to collect the supplies he had thrown off his counter.

Sunny approached cautiously, "I don't think I've seen Chip riled up like that before, Cheyenne don't back down from nothin' but she hid when Chip came storming out. She sighed, yer lucky it was just a simple misunderstanding, I'd hate to have to get between you two and Chip."

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Eclipse overheard the deal and placed the armor she still had with her inside the store as a sorry even if he didn't want it and ran off towards Solstice saying, "I'm sorry, I should have waited for you." 

Solstice smiled and said as she teleported her clothes over to them, "It's fine, it's just a fact of not enough time to warn you about it." She turned to Sunny and said, "Yeah, it was a bit scary, but the outcome would probably be worse."

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Sunny nodded, "Well, it's getting late. Cheyenne and I've got to make a patrol around town, keep back all the night critters. Best of luck to the two of you, hope you find those guys who tried to kill ya'll." With that she and her dog turned to start walking around the town, rifle ready.

They could follow the road down to Prime like they had been told by Sunny, or they could explore some other way, unless they had something else they wanted to do while in town?

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Solstice nodded and said as she led the way down the road to prime, "I might come and visit after all this is done." As she walked away, she charged up her rifle and checked with the magnum had ammo, before swapping her pistol for it.

Eclipse said as she stashed her clothes in her bag, "Bye and thank you for helping me shoot." She unlatched her book and read it as she followed her sister.

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On their way to Prime they'd come across the following in this order:

The entrance to a small cave, a battered looking refrigerator, and the spring that seemed to feed the Sweetwater wells.

The road they followed came to a tee with a larger road, an old-world sign off to the side indicated that the left went to Las Pegasus and to the right was Prime.

Across the tee was a ruined shack with a faded sign reading: Jean Skydiving & Pilot School . There was evidence that someone either lived in the shack, or it had been recently visited.

Continuing on the larger road towards Prime they'd notice a camp of ponies just off the side of the road, Eclipse would be perceptive enough to notice that they were wearing the same armor as the group that attacked the town. They could try to sneak past them by moving off the road, try their luck walking past hoping not to be noticed, or attack them on sight, among others. They couldn't tell how many there were.

(Sometimes stopping at one thing changes what they find on the same path.)

 

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Eclipse levitated Solstice over to her and peeked into the cave to see what's in it, but not to be seen. She dropped Solstice next to her and made a ball of light to illuminate the inside of the cave.

Solstice felt her body go light as she was picked up and carried over to the cave, she knew that she shouldn't talk in fear of what was inside of the cave.

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The cave was slightly damp inside, providing a startling contrast to the dry desert without. Listening closely they'd be able to hear the breathing of what sounded like wolves or feral dogs, but Solstice couldn't tell how many. Eclipse however could tell there were at least four.

Furthermore there was the smell of death, at least one pony had died in the cave, likely by whatever lived there.

Eclipse would be able to find a dose of Dogeye near the entrance. (Gives extra vision in low light environments.)

When Eclipse shined the light they would hear growling from inside the cave, more clearly attributed to coyotes, as a large one came around a bend in the cave to watch them as it growled. 

(I'll leave to you what they do or don't know about things, but Eclipse Succeeded an Intelligence roll while Solstice Failed)

(Above Eclipse passed perception while Solstice failed as well.)

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Eclipse slowly levitated it to her as she turned off the light and said in a hushed tone, "We should be going, wouldn't want the pack on top of us."

Solstice nodded with understanding, and quietly got the rifle out and if any living thing comes out before whatever Eclipse grabs comes to her. 

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The coyote calmed down a bit when the light went away, it wasn't getting any closer, but it wasn't backing away either. Its growls did go down in volume, it seemed content to leave them be if they didn't come any closer.

If they then continued on their journey towards Prime they'd be met by a worried looking stallion near the battered looking fridge, he'd run up to them, pointing towards the top of a nearby hill, "You've got to help me! My wife, she's stuck up there with a bunch of geckos! I can't drive them away to save her!"

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Eclipse stashed the bottle of dogeye in her bag and was glad that she didn't have to deal with the coyotes in the cave., then as they were heading to prime, and stallion stopped them asking for help. She backed up to let Solstice handle it.

Solstice walked next to Eclipse with her rifle levitating next to her. She spoke to the stallion and said, "Okay, Slow down, I need you to keep a level head and lead us up there."

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The stallion himself looked somewhat frail, not like one who could hold his own in a fight, "Please, I'm just a farmer, not a fighter. She means the world to me and I'll pay you well if you can get her back to me!"

He'd point again to the hill, more specifically to a dirt path that wound up and around the rocky hill. "There's a path there, where we got separated, she ran up the hill while I ran back down. Please hurry!"

The stallion seemed to be a nervous wreck at this point, he wouldn't be much help if they wanted to bring him along, but they weren't obligated to help either.

If they decided to help, following the indicated path they'd quickly come across a small group of geckos as described, four here, but by the sound there were likely more further up the path.

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Solstice nodded and lead the way up the hill to see the geckos, she flattened into the dirt and took two quick shots with her rifle at the geckos. She readied a third shot for when they ran towards them. 

Eclipse grabbed her rifle and took a shot at one of the geckos

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Solstice missed her first shot, but her second shot hit, downing a gecko. Eclipse also missed her shot.

As the geckos came running at them Eclipse would notice they were smaller than the ones she had fought at the wells.

Three geckos remain.

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Solstice fired the shot, then steadied her aim by holding onto the rifle and took another two shots at them

Eclipse noticed that they might be younger than the other ones. She took a shot at the on in the front. 

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Eclipse barely missed her shot, but Solstice made all three of her shots, downing the remaining geckos.

However, the shots had attracted the attention of the geckos further up the hill, a trio of geckos larger than the ones Eclipse had fought at the wells were now coming towards them.

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Solstice charged her weapon and took three shots at the geckos.

Eclipse noticed that they were a bit bigger and placed her gun down to launch magic spears that looked like they were made of crystal at the geckos

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Solstice hit two of her shots, hitting two of the large geckos, but that didn't stop their advance.

Eclipse's spear hit one of the wounded geckos, killing it instantly as it cut clean through it.

These geckos, in addition to being larger, were also faster, and were now upon them, each took a swing at each of the sisters, the one attacking Solstice missed, hitting the other by mistake. The one attacking Eclipse got a solid hit (24).

Only the two geckos remained, each having taken a hit.

Solstice is at full health, Eclipse is slightly wounded (176/200)

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Solstice aimed her gun point blank at the gecko and fired twice at it, then shot once at the other gecko.

Eclipse stepped a bit back after getting hurt and grabbed her knife and stabbed at the gecko where it's heart should be.

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Solstice dispatched the first gecko with her second shot, and bloodied the second with her third shot.

Given Eclipse's inexperience both with Melee Weapons and Medicine she wasn't able to stab very effectively, nonetheless the gecko looked unsteady and close to death.

The gecko went for another swing at Eclipse, but missteped and impaled itself on her knife.

With all the geckos dead it was much quieter on the hill, but there was still no sign of the missing mare.

If they scavenged the corpses of the geckos they'd be able to gather 5 pieces of gecko hide and six pieces of gecko meat.

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Solstice walked past the bodies of geckos as Eclipse stuffed them into her bag and called out, "Ma'am, are you out here?" She loaded her magnum with ammo and had it ready in case another gecko or creature popped out.

Eclipse picked up the skin and meat of the gecko and stashed it in her bag, then she pulled the knife out of the gecko.

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No one responded to Solstice's call, meaning that if the mare was up here, she was probably dead, which would explain why the geckos came for them rather than staying on the mare like they had at the wells.

Continuing up the hill to the end of the path they wouldn't find any sign of the mare, nor any blood, instead they would find an armchair which looked out over the road up to Sweetwater, sitting in the chair was a 10mm pistol with some ammo. Nearby was a hooflocker which if they opened they'd find some assorted supplies (food and medicine), some chems (Buffout, Fixer, and Mentats), as well as a cowboy repeater rifle with a full clip.

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Solstice holstered the magnum as she found the chair and gathered up the weapons, ammo, and the chems as Eclipse ran to catch up, then she levitated the repeater to look at it closely.

Eclipse ran to catch up with Solstice and collected the rest of the items. She was curious about why the mare wasn't here, could they been lied to or the mare got away?

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They didn't have to wonder long before they heard a chuckling behind them. It was the stallion from before, only his whole countenance had changed, gone was the timid and terrified, replaced with smug confidence. "Sorry about the deception, I just needed those geckos cleared out so I could get to that cache there."

With a swirl of orange fire the stallion revealed himself to be a changeling wearing reinforced leather armor. He drew out his own gun, a .357 magnum, "So why don't you two put the stuff down and leave me to it then?"

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Solstice turned around to changeling and said as she levitated her gun out in front of her, "Maybe not, I say this is enough for compensation, We had to deal with six big geckos, a lot of wasted ammo, I mean this gun take special kind of ammo. I mean, if you have something more value than this gun, you can have it."

Eclipse unlatched her book and started flipping through the pages, looking for a spell that could work to dilute the situation.