Silent Hill

Arc fails the first hack. Two tries remain before the computer locks.

Arc let out a spicy curse pointed towards one of the goddesses, rubbed his eyes for a moment and return to the console.

(Science 82: Hacking the computer.)

Bakewell rushed through the town as she tried to scan each nook and cranny, trying to will Ember into existence each time she saw a clump of shadows or an alleyway. She hadn’t gotten very far when a noise made her suddenly put on the brakes. Was that… a voice?

The beige mare sat uncertainly, ears perked up as she tried to listen. She could have sworn that she had heard Ember’s voice, but her visions of him every turn combined with the voice in her head and the towns very nature so far gave her more than enough reasons to doubt her ears. Should she try to reply? It would lure things to her, surely. But would one of those things be their missing pony? This was a risky thing to do, but there was a small chance…

“Hello?” She asked back, ears forward as she listened. “Ember..?”

Ember heard a reply to his question, and regonised Bakewells voice. He began to move quickly in the direction the voice had come from, before his mind caught up with him again, and he once more thought of the possibility that this was some trick to lure him to his death. Ember slowed down again and moved cautiously forwards. "Bakewell... I-is that you?"

The other thing that Ember thought was whether Bakewell had come to look for him, or whether she had also got split up from the group... Or if she was the only one left of the group. Ember pushed all those thought aside as he got closer, he would find Bakewell, and then find out from her just what was going on.

Cuppa looked around as Bakewell and Silver started a small argument, that didn't last long, about Ember Hooves, the cowardly pony that had come along on this trip as well. Silver had complained about how much of a coward Ember was, and this made her frown a lot, despite everything the group had already suffered, how could he care so little about a pony that actually needed keeping safe?

Cuppa could easily admit that she wasn't a great pony in terms of courage, but when someoony was insulted so flagrantly without the pony around to even hear what they had to say... Cuppa could not ignore that, especially when the pony in question had opted to stay in this hell hole whilst the pony saying all this had wanted to turn and run.

"Silver Tongue. Yer a disgusting hypocrite of a pony, ya know that, right? Yer sayin' Ember is such a coward, that'd he'd die o' fright. But if ah remember rightly, ya'll were up fer turnin' tail an' runnin' with yer tail between yer legs when things got a lil' bit scary, even though Ember chose t' stay, probably knowin' there was worse to come! Ah know ah'm no action pony, and that ah'm scared stiff o' this place, but ah can't call that pony a coward, not when ah know he bucked up an' chose to stay over runnin' like a big filly's blouse!" Cuppa started before she could stop herself, he more or less seemed to be more bark than bite, so what could he do to her if he wanted to try and keep up the appearance of being a nice pony?

Arc types in 'almightyone'. It let's him in. Most of the data is corrupted, but there is a audio file and a personal journal.

Silver looked at Cuppa incredulously. "No, I didn't want to run away. I wanted to leave and come back with weapons that leave craters and a fine red mist. Remember the roar from the creature in the clouds? He sounded big enough to eat all of us and still be hungry. I'd rather feed it a rocket or a balefire egg. And you obviously don't remember the thing that damn near cut you in half. Our pistols merely annoyed it. We came unprepared. We underestimated this place. An old adage comes to mind. 'The wise stallion must sometimes retreat, if only to fight another day'. You know what it means? It means there's a fine line between bravery and stupidity. And fighting that thing in the clouds or Pyramid Head with just pistols is just stupid. So does that make me a hypocrite? Wanting to leave and come back better prepared rather than be the dinner of some creature because I tried to kill it with a shitty pistol. Then yes, I am a hypocrite. I'm the biggest fuckin' hypocrite you'll ever meet." Silver sighed and looked down. "Anyway, it's to late. There's a giant chasm where the road used to be. You can't even see the other side. And the way it curves leads me to believe that it goes around the town. We're stuck here for now."

"YES!" cheered Arc as the system decided to stop being so stubborn and let him in. As it turned out, only two files were still able to be accessed, so he downloaded both onto his pipbuck.

"Alright, found something, a sound recording and what seems to be a diary or something. I'll play the audio file, so everyone listen please."

Arc fiddled with the pipbuck for a moment, then set it to play the sound file, turning up the volume so others could hear too.

That was… that was definitely Ember’s voice.

“Yes! Yes, it’s me! Where did you go? The world went all weird and Cuppa was attacked by a pony with a dumb hat and huge sword and then when we looked around you were gone! I’m so sorry Ember, I promised to keep you safe! I should have kept a closer eye on you.” The mare apologized as she faced the sound.

Ember heard the reply and began running towards the voice, it would either be Bakewell, or something horrible mimicing her voice, at wich point he would soon be running in the opposite direction. But sure enough it was Bakewell, and Ember skidded to a halt infront of her. "A p-pony with a huge s-sword? Is it g-gone now? Is Cuppa ok? And it's n-not your fault Bakewell, I sh-should have said s-something, and y-you came back t-to find me, th-that's enough f-for me to know y-you didn't mean it."

day dream didnt lissen to the others as he wached out the front door his head hurt as he didnt want to think about the monsters that where hear, he didnt even feel hes nose start to bleed.

“Cee’s fine. The monster ran away for some reason, and thankfully Arc Weld had a health potion to patch her up.” Bakewell quietly explained as her eyes darted over the red unicorn who had entered her vision. If this wasn’t Ember, then whatever beastie it was deserved to win for having such a perfect impression.

“It is my fault.” She insisted. The mare debated trying to give Ember a reassuring hug, but wasn’t quite sure how he would react to the action. Besides, now probably wasn’t the best time. “I was too busy being a stupid foal to notice you leave. The rest are…were… at the police station. Let’s head that way, I don’t want us to be out here any longer than we have to be. It’s not safe out here...”

Ember felt relieved to find Bakewell, and more so when it turned out she knew where the others were as well. "I st-still have the map for that p-place Bakewell, we should g-get it back to th-them as soon as possible." Ember started walking in what he assumed was the direction of the police station, but managed about two steps before he hesitated, waiting for Bakewell to go first. "Y-you aren't stupid B-bakewell, you m-made a mistake, everypony d-does it, and n-now you fixed it. So st-stop worrying about it." Ember gave Bakewell a nervous smile, it was as close to not scared as he could look, before waiting for her to take the lead.

“Hmm.” Bakewell responded to Ember as he tried to justify her mistakes. She wasn’t going to hear any of it, she knew what she had caused, and the skull was currently making sure she was unable to forget. She was fully capable of arguing the point until Ember Hoove's red face turned blue, but they couldn’t sit here and argue about how dumb the beige mare was and how much she should be telling him to not worry right now. The sword pony might come back, and if the entire group had been unable to fend him off properly, two or three ponies certainly would be unable to. This time they didn’t even have healing potions…

Bakewell simply stared at Ember for a short while, awkwardly waiting for him to take the lead before realizing that he was probably wanting her to stand in front.

“Please don’t wander off without telling me this time, pretty please?” She asked before starting off. Stopping and checking behind her every few steps until she was confident that Ember was going to follow her to the police station.

"Ah'm sure a smart pony would've prepared fer the worst before seein' it happen. Ah prepared fer medical problems, why did nopony prepare fer big shootin' problems?" Cuppa started in response before walking towards one of the doorways and simply looking through it for now, glancing to see where she could go from here.

"Ah dun wanna listen to any more recordin's, not if they're gonna be like that first one." Cuppa then said, frowning at Arc's declaration for everypony to listen. "Anyway, why not wait fer the others t' get back? Ah'm sure they're fine." Moving away from the hallway to take a quick look through the filing cabinet.

(Perception 6, luck 4 checking the filing cabinet.)

Static background noise is heard. There is the sound of a phone picking up.

Police Pony: Hello, this is the Silent Hill Police Department. What's your emergency?

(Crying is heard)Mare: HELP ME! Please! I've made a mistake. (She wails)

Police Pony: Mam', I need you to calm down and tell me what's wrong?

Mare: Please help! I gave my daughter to Christabella! She said she could help! To restore her innocence! (Wailing) I was so stupid to believe her! She used such kind words. Please hurry! Alessa is the hotel! It's room numb- (The mare grunts. There are sounds of a scuffle. The phone is hung up. The dial tone is heard.)

Police Pony: Mam? MAM!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The recording ends.

=================

Cuppa finds 11 Caps and (5)9mm bullets

Ember followed after Bakewell as she started off. "I-I wont, I p-promise Bakewell." He continued to look around nervously as they headed to the police station, he was now worried that something was going to try cut him up out of nowhere. "I-is everypony else s-still there? No one else h-has gone missing?" Ember wondered if any of the others had wandered off, he hoped they were all fine too, he mainly hoped that nopony else had gone to look for him and hadn't come back.

“Everyone was there when I left to find you…” Bakewell replied as the police station came into view. Her ear twitched as the beige thought she heard unfamiliar voices from inside the building. She glanced back at Ember with slight worry before pushing the police station door open and peering inside.

"Well excuuuse me princess," Silver shouted towards Cuppa as she walked away, "I'm sorry I couldn't afford those kinds of weapons. I thought we would be up against some raiders who turned some sort of pre-war arcane machine." Silver turns away and mutters "Bitch."

Silver listened to the recording. "Hmm. That must of been the mother of the filly that was burned. We should probably head there next."

Arc listened to the recording in silence, looking at the device on his leg. A frown slowly formed on his face, hearing what the mare did. Two hundred years ago... and yet Arc couldn't help himself but to sigh as the recording ended.

"Right. Well, whomever this Christabella was... what are the chances that weird religious practices practising ponies and... well, whatever is happening around is are not connected? So... I guess the hotel is the next stop? Hopefully there will still be records in there, and we won't have to search the whole place... Though, who am I kidding..."

Cuppa simply put the caps and the rounds into her saddlebags for now, accompanying the stapler and it's many staples, not to mention the small plethora of things she now had, such as Hearths Warming decorations.

Before Cuppa said anything, the door creaked open and her eyes immediately darted over to it, seeing Bakewell's return, which made her smile slightly. "Ya have good luck in findin' Ember?" She asked before giving a look around to Arc and Silver. "Ya'll both know we've no idea what room we're meant t' go to there, right? Ah'm sure ya could find out by checkin' the number that called or summint, right?" She started before turning towards hallway two of three. "Anypony want t' come an' check this way wi' me?"

Arc fumbled with the pipbuck for a while, setting it to automap the building and increased the lightning of the screen, surrounding himself with the eerie green glow of it. Looking at the charred remains of the prism rifle hung on his back, he frowned even more and said towards Cuppa "Yeah. I'm coming with you, I need a weapon and this place has a good chance of having a few still left here."

dream looked back at the red maned mare "shore ill come with you." he sead smiling

Bakewell had luckily been spared the recording, not having gotten back in time to really catch more than the very last seconds.

“Yeah, he’s right here, thank Celestia.” Bakewell replied to Cuppa’s inquiry, motioning to the buck with her head. She didn’t really know what the group’s plan was, but they all seemed to be following Cuppa somewhere or other. She would just follow along with the rest and eventually everything would either make sense or not matter. This time she would be careful to make sure Ember was still following the rest.

As Ember nervously looked inside the police station he caught sight of the others, he stepped inside after Bakewell and looked around before using his magic to float the tube with the map in out of his saddlebags. He took the map out and looked at the circled room, his eyes caught sight of the little message written on the map.

I've left you a gift to get through the shock,
But only if you can outsmart the lock.
Of course you can you force or wits,
But what really helps is something that fits.

The message alone gave Ember a sense of hope, but at the same time it worried him. What was there that could help with the shock? And why did it seem like the note was intended for Ember, or somepony like him, and not for somepony who lived in the town before the war. After getting an idea of where the room was in relation to their current location he looked up at the group. "Uhh... I think w-we should try and f-find this room, it says th-that something in there will h-help..." Ember floated the map around to face the group so if they wanted, they could also see the circled room, and the message. The room was just about all Ember wanted to do with the police station, and he would be happy to get out as soon as possible.