Silent Hill

The group walks into the building, partners at there sides. The building has a slight musty smell. The foyer is dusty. The interior design is wood and linoleum. There's a directory knocked over on the floor. There are four hallways that branch from there. A second floor balcony overlooks the foyer. A chandelier hangs overhead.

Silver looked around. He sees the directory. Silver starts towards it but stops. He takes a better look around. "You know guys, I've been doing some thinking. For a town that was in a over ten year coal fire, nothing looks to burnt. Could be just the underground that caught and the fumes drove everypony away. But I'm just thinking out loud." Silver walks over to the directory and floats it up with his magic. "Let's see, archives over to the left. Mayors office upstairs. Storage room to the right and building records upstairs."

Silver turns and faces the group. "Okay, me and my partner will check out the archives. I wanna get some more info on this place. The rest of you spread out and check the other places. If you find anything, give a shout. Whoever checks out building records see if you can find a map. All right then, let's check this place out." Silver heads into the direction of the archives.

Ember followed the group in, sticking close to Bakewell. He looked around in a terrified awe at the place, Ember had never seen an intact pre-war building before. Seeing the place lacking any rubble strewn about, or fallen shelves or chairs, to Ember it made the place seem... Empty. When Silver mentioned the fires it gave Ember a horrible thought.

"The f-fires were underground? What... What if the floor collapses u-under us? Though... I-I guess that if they were going to... They w-would have done already... Right?" Ember smiled to himself a little as he realised he had managed to re-assure himself for once.

Silver mentioned the need to split off and search the building, the thought of leaving the group scared him, but Bakewell would go with him, so he would still have somepony with him... "Uhm... W-we can go and look for that map? That... That is if y-you want to Bakewell? Otherwise we c-can go somewhere else?... Sorry."

Bakewell paused and tested the floor. It… seemed sturdy enough? She didn’t really know how to tell bar the whole thing collapsing under her when she put weight on it. She wasn’t quite sure she trusted it now that the possibility of it falling out from under her had been voiced, even if it had instantly been taken back.

“No, no. That’s a great idea!” She encouraged Ember before turning and starting to carefully make her way towards the building archives. The mare didn’t exactly seem to trust the stairs (or the building itself) and was taking it slowly.

“We’ll go find a map. Being able to tell where we’re going and where we’ve been should definitely be helpful, right? And hey, maybe we’ll find other useful stuff, too!”

dream fallowed silver closely "its day dream silver but gaze works" he called to the gray staillon walking along side him, there was shadows moveing in the coriner of hes eyes that unsetteld him alot. "i realy dont like this place...im starting to rember thing i dont want to..." dream mummred to himself

Ten years of fire... that would mean that the coal deposit must have been quite large, and so were the mines. Canterlot mountain was after all rumored to be full of riches, the fools though that at least.

"Noone would mine under the city. That's simply not how this works, so dont worry about sudden cave-in, at least not here. You really cant do much more than whole city sitting for two hundred years did. Closer to the mountain, though, it is possible, but then again, i think the rain would flush all the caves with water after such a long time."

Arc thought for a moment where should he and Cuppa go.

"Since we both intended to look for supplies, should we go and check the storage, Cuppa?"

Cuppa looked to the others as they stated where they would go, giving a slight nod and glancing to Arc as he spoke to her. Storage was a good idea, there could be all manner of useful things in there, maybe. Or there could just be a whole ton of cleaning supplies gone bad or something equally worse.

"Sure, t' the store room fer us." She said, giving another nod. "Shouldn't be too hard t' find somethin' useful in there. Was thinkin' bout hitting the store room up mahself." As she spoke, she gave a nervous grin hidden by her mask and trotted in the direction of Storage. "Be safe, everypony!" She called behind her, hoping Arc was following her as she trotted off.

Ember began to carefully follow Bakewell, watching where he put every hoof and listening for any signs that the floor might fall away under him. Though he became a bit more relaxed when Arc said that there wouldn't be mines under the town itself, though he still placed each hoof carefully... Just incase...

Ember eventually caught up to Bakewell and kept pace with her. "W-what else do you think we might f-find here Bakewell? I wouldn't t-think there would be much more than p-paperwork in here."

Sky headed towards to the mayors office, as it seems like it was the last place to go while all the others headed everywhere else. there was no where else to go, but to the mayors office. Sky looked around the town, this place seems to creepy without the bones or anything of decay. Its just here, like nothing is ever wrong with this town. Sky just trotted up to the mayors office with nothing else in mind than to look around, they needed to stop nightmares but this is just plain freaky.

Each group reaches their goal within minutes. When they enter the room, their days of sleep deprivation catch up to them, and they fall asleep.

They wake up in the center of the room, each with something in front of them. Two casino chips in front of Silver, a griffin feather in front of Dream, a computer chip in front of Arc, a slave collar in front of Cuppa, a crushed skull in front of Bakewell, a picture in front of Ember and Sky, and rusty Enclave helmet in front of Dawn. Ember's picture depicted a foals rendition of a nightmarish creature killing two ponies while an orange colt hid under the bed. Sky's picture was a foals rendition of two parents and a filly. The parents had curly eyes and looked at the filly with hatred.

Anypony that had a pipbuck, their radio turned on. It is tuned an unnamed channel and it emits no noise. They can not turn it off.

In the archives room there are dusty shelf's in the middle of the room, with file cabinets by the walls. There is on file box on the center shelf. A few of the file cabinet drawers are open and empty.

In the storage room is an assortment of dusty things. Hearths Warming decorations, Nightmare Night decorations, cleaning supplies, and office supplies. Sitting on a table near the office supplies is a holotape.

In the building records room racks line the wall with slots for tubes. At the back is a map pinned to a cork board. There is only one tube in the rack. It is marked police station.

In the mayors office is a desk, file cabinets, and boarded up windows. There are broken crooked picture frames on the wall. On the carpet is the same symbol on top of the church. On the desk is an active terminal.

Sky groaned as she looked around, it looked like she slept and now she was somewhere she doesnt know. She should have gotten some sleep before and now she looked at something that was in front of her, she extended her hooves to grab it and it was a picture. it was a two parents looking at a filly with pure hate, Sky nearly freaked when she saw the picture. The picture it almost looked like her, but the parents eyes were different. They were just different, it seemed....wrong. Sky got on all fours and stood, she was already freaked by this experience and now she didn't want to freak out more.

Dawn followed Sky up to the Mayor's office, having silently agreed to become her partner with a polite nod, trailing behind her pistol in mouth incase anything bad was to pop out. After each step he took his eyelids became heavier and heavier, his pistol becoming all the more harder to keep aimed, he soon dropped, his head hitting the ground with a low thud.......

After what felt like hours, and probably one of the more descent night sleeps that he's had, he opens his eyes only to be meet by the hollow gaze of an enclave helmet, his eyes widened in surprise, hitting it with his hoof out of instinct knocking it over onto it's side. Regaining full conciosness of the world around him Dawn picked up the helmet, examening it closely, he noted that there was a strange familiarity about it like as though he had seen it one to many times in his childhood.

Tossing the helmet aside im disgust, Dawn looked around the office spotting the symbol' "I wonder what that thing is? the people who used to live here worshiped it to near obssesion." Dawn asked hoping that the question hadn't fallen on deaf ears........ Then suddenly something hit him he looked over his shoulder his eyes widening in comprehension F......fa....Father.........Dawn dispersed the thought from his head as quicly as it came, fixing his glasse he looked towards the filing cabinets hopeful to distract his mind with anything.

[Perception: 9, Luck: 5, rolling to scavenge the filling cabinets for anything useful]

Bakewell awoke in a surprisingly peaceful daze, her memories of what she had been up to before dozing off took a while to come back, but when they did her eyes snapped open instantly. She had gone to sleep! How could she have done such a stupid thing? Ember probably thought she had up and died mid-trot or something! How could she be s-

All conscious thought stopped instantly as Bakewell found her gaze being met by the gaze of a half crushed skull. She felt the one in tact eye socket pierce through her very being as the mare's entire body began to tremble uncontrollably. ‘Why are you so nervous?’ she mentally reasoned to herself in an attempt to calm down. ‘This is the wasteland. Skulls are everywhere. It’s practically the wastes dress code! This is just some poor, unfortunate pony who tragically died at the hands of a balefire bomb or some raiders. You’ve seen it before, this is no different.’

But it was different. Bakewell knew exactly what this skull was. Who this skull was. Why this skull was. She couldn’t explain why it, but she knew her fearful conclusion was true. She unsteadily rose, snatching the skull with shaking hooves and carefully putting it into her saddlebags as though it were some priceless treasure before turning to check on Ember. The beige pony hoped against hope that he had not seen the skull and would think that Bakewell was fine, but she could feel herself still shaking, hooves making scuttling noises on the floor as they attempted to hold up her body that was refusing to co-operate. It felt like she was literally about to fall apart.

Even though the skull was out of sight she could still feel it watching her. Always watching, judging.

Bakewell Tart was sorry, so, so sorry. Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry-

Ember woke in a daze, he couldn't quite remember what had happened, he had been following Bakewell, then... He had no idea. He was now on the floor, there was something infront of him, it looked like a picture. Ember assumed that the picture had fallen off the wall, so he picked it up, intending to give it a ook, maybe keep it if it was worth selling, but what he saw brought back memories that had taken years to repress.

What the picture depicted reminded Ember of what had happened to his parents, at least, it was how he remembered it. "Wha... No... No no no no!!!" Ember dropped the picture and threw himself into the nearest corner with a loud thud. He hadn't even registered what Bakewell had done, he just cowered, forcing himself as far into the corner as he could and whimpering while shaking violently.

Arc opened his eyes, streched his hooves and yawned. It was a nice-
Wait, how the fuck did he got here? The place looked like the storage he and Cuppa, who was snoring next to him, were going to check. Probably they got here and then fell asleep. It was strange that Arc had no nightmares this time, but perhaps his brain was so tired that he just shut up and slept too for once.

Arc nudged Cuppa a little. "Hey, wake up sleepyhead, we still have duties."

Arc looked around the room and noticed a piece of electronics on the ground, near where he slept. Why would this be in a town hall? Arc stepped close and floated the chip closer to his face.

"Huh, TY-36, these things were used back in Stable for coolant flow control, now why would anypony have such a thing-"
"Oh."

Cuppa hadn't even realised that she was going to fall asleep, but she did, her eyes just gave up and she hit the floor and was asleep in seconds. No, don't sleep, please don- And she was out.

"Hey, wake up sleepyhead, we still have duties."
Waking up with a bit of a start as she was nudged, causing her to look around with concern. "Nuthin' happened while ah was asleep..." The unicorn trailed off as she pushed herself up onto her hooves slowly, eyes spotting the collar as she froze up entirely, entire body tense as she stood there in the middle of standing up.

Cuppa's attention was immediately on this object, it brought back many a memory that she did not want to remember, especially not right now. But as she sat there, she started to get both angry at it and find it to be the most intimidating thing in the room.

Dropping to her haunches and starting to try and push herself back, the flood of memories and fear of this one thing made her forget she could just fling it away with magic. "Ah dun like this, ah really, really dun like this!" She managed to say before she fell over herself with a surprised yelp, scrambling to her hooves and keeping her eyes on the collar, finding herself in a small pile of Hearths Warming decorations.

"A-Arc, can ya get rid o' this thing? Ah dun wanna touch it." She hesitantly called to the unicorn she was paired with, not chancing a look his way in case the collar did something, like vanish or try to clamp onto her... or anything other than staying right where it was, she'd even pulled her gun out and pointed it at the object, as if to threaten it.

Silver walked into the room. The second he did so, he felt the nights of sleeplessness catch up to him. Have. To. Stay. Awake. Silver stumbles forward and falls asleep.

Silver opened his eyes drearily. Uhg, can't believe I fell asleep. Well at lea the nigh- Silver sees the casino chips. One was a red striped one depicting a horseshoe. The other one was purple and had the silhouette of a sexy mare. Huh those look like casino chips from The Luck Horseshoe and Mare-a-palooza. Wait a tick. Silver yelped and scooted away from them. "They are! No. You can't be here. You can only exist in Pegasus. I ran away from you." Silver mumbles to the chips. He suddenly stands up. "Show yourselves! Come on! You apparently followed me here, so show yourselves!" Silver yells out. He grabs the chips, floats out his gun, and backs into a corner. "Why are you? Why now? Why follow me? It cost more than what I stole to follow me out here. Wasn't it enough to drive me away from my home?" Silver sits down and silently cries. "You drove me from my family. My life. Wasn't that enough."

The chip brough back a tidal wave of old memories, the kind you push into a closet in the back of your mind, build a conrete wall in front of the door, and place a machinegun post with minefield to guard it from any idea of looking inside.

The day he returned from school to find home empty.
The moment they told him.
The funeral.
The wow.

"No Arc. We have been trough this once, and we prevailed over the fear and sorrow. Be strong, others will need you."

Arc was mentally kicked from this deep state by Cuppa fearfull cry. Arc turned around and seen the collar that caused such a reaction from her."Not the only one with bad memories, it would seem. Someone is fucking with us."

Arc's horn glimmered with magic. His telekinesis field picked the offending collar and flung into into the back of the storage room, Arc heard it land somewhere among the boxes.

The brown stallion was unsure what to do to calm the mare. Then he proceeded to hug Cuppa."It's okay, it's gone. You can calm now.", Arc said in awkward tone. He really wasn't sure if this was socially acceptable procedure in such situation, but what the hell.

Dawn Blaze finds 1x Health Potion and 10 caps.

Okay, Ember wasn’t doing so hot, either. In fact he was doing worse.

The mare carefully walked over to the map, shakily biting down on the pins and slowly drawing them out with her mouth. Eventually the map fell and she would do a horrible job of rolling it and carefully lodging it into her saddlebag

’I-I know' She thought in mental conversation with herself. 'I-I didn’t forget about him! I swear! I-I-I just need to make sure we get this. For the others. They’ll expect it of m-m-me. L-l-look! I’m heading to him right… now. I’m going to help him right now!'

Bakewell made her way to Ember on jelly legs. She was almost to him when the wibbling limbs decided that they had suffered quite enough for the benefit of those snobby upper class “torso” and “head” chaps, causing the mare to let out a short cry before hitting the floor and having to crawl for the rest of the trip.

Once Bakewell finally made her way to Ember’s corner she would wrap her her body around the unicorn partner in a shakey hug, hoping it would be enough. The cook wasn’t confident in her ability to give reassuring words right now. Besides, she herself needed a hug. This was just as much an attempt to ease her own self as it was to calm down Ember; a fact that the skull in her bags was quick to point out with disgust.

It seemed that Arc had definitely heard her after she had made such a fuss over that slave collar on the floor, as he threw it away into the cover of a pile of boxes Cuppa let out a very relieved sigh upon seeing the object leave her sight, the weight of it's existence obscured by the boxed in the back of the room.

As Arc made an attempt to comfort her with a hug, the unicorn's gun dropped from the magical field she had been holding it with and she quietly leaned into the embrace. "Thanks... Ah couldn't do it mahself..." She quietly spoke, waiting a moment afterwards, with somepony else there Cuppa felt safer.

Pulling off the gasmask and dropping it, the restricting feel against her face was gone, after that she didn't want to keep hidden behind a mask. Holstering her gun and wiping away some tears with her sleeve, she looked at Arc. "We gots things t' do, so ah can't be sittin' here gettin' all emotional now, can ah?" She said as she tried to put on a strong front, which would've been easier with the gasmask on. Ah hope ah never see yer ugly hide again, blasted collar... She thought to the now distant object before shakily rising to her hooves.

"C'mon, best find what we can an' get back t' the group." She said, just spotting the holotape on the table near the office supplies. "What's that thing there?"

Arc let Cuppa go and held hoof for her to get up. "It's a holotape, it would seem, if it's still in good condition, i can play the message with my pipbuck."

Arc trotted to the data storing device and connected it to his pipbuck. Yes, there was a soundfile. Arc pushed play, and set the volume high enough for Cuppa to hear.

Arc and Cuppa hear a group gathering. There are two prominent voices. A fillies voice and an older mares. The filly is screaming in the background. She alternates between screams and sobs, but it's mostly screams. They sound like screams of torture and pain instead of fear. There is also a faint sizzling sound. The older mares voice begins speaking. It sounds like it's in a big room.

"Weep not for the demon." The mare says.

"Nooooooo!" Screams the filly.

"Once again we are locked in mortal battle."

"Aaaaahhh!"

"Praise God for our clarity."

"Amen" says the group as one.

"Please stop!"

"Praise the innocent for their sacrifice. They give us back our purity."

"Purity" says the group as one.

"And our unity!"

"Unity" says the group as one.

"Aaaaaaauuuuuggg!"

There is suddenly the sound of creaking metal. Something snaps. There is now the sound of a metal chain being dragged and gasps. It is followed by a deep gong like noise.

They hear the group panic. They say things like fire, demon, and run.

The recording ends.

A healing potion and ten caps, this'll come in handy Dawn thought though what he found had been a good bounty it hadn't been what he was really looking for. Turning towards the mayor's desk, the information on this place he had been looking for feverishly had to be somewhere and that was his best shot. Someone must have really done their homework his thoughts continuing to run as he paced towards the desk Well lets hope for the best

[Perception: 9, Luck: 5, rolling to search the mayor's desk]

Well, that was either a pretty shitty radio show, or someone planned this all in advance. Considering it was Silver who told them first about the whole sacrifice story... Cuppa was a former slave, that she would be freaked by collar was no suprise, and Arc family history... someone in Stableton could have told him.

Still, he had to be sure.
"Cuppa... what do you think?"