Dealing with Slavers [CLOSED]

"Well, I'm sorry if I'm not as fit as other ponies you know. I was exhausted, and it wasn't like I was in any position to slow down to catch my breath, you know? After all, I had to try and keep up with you! It was either take a break, or risk dropping dead on the spot!"

Shutter said back, clearly still having not caught on to what was being said.

Lucky looked over at Starry.

"Just give him time. What comes around goes around, you know."

He switched the conversation back to the magazine again.

" Now Shutter, about the teasing, buck up. If I had mares following ME around flashing themselves, I'd get me a nice hat and walk around town like a king. It's not like it's nothing you ain't seen before anyway, half the ponies out in the world walk around in the buff."

Looking at his own measly apparel, he chuckled.

"Hell, I'm only half dressed myself, and you ain't flippin' out and turning pink anytime you're around me."

Starry glared at Lucky angrily. Evidently, she was just a tad bit offended. "See Unlucky, that's why you don't get the mares. Nopony likes a show-off. Shutter here is a wonderful stallion, and someday some lucky mare, or stallion, I don't want to assume, will find him and they'll be happy together."

She turned back to Lucky, with a smile on her face, happy to stand up for one of her friends. "Isn't that right, Shutter?"

*In a bench, Sky lay sleeping.*

Lucky just shrugged his shoulders and layed back.

"Perfect example of what I was just saying. Say something blatantly stupid and offensive, get yelled at. Karma's a real bitch sometimes. It's why I try to watch my actions, before they come back and bite me in the ass."

Shutter had been about to say something and no doubt end up accidentally continuing this legendary stream of double-entendres...However, the second Starry came to his defense, all the frustration from their slight argument seems to just melt away.

"...Th...thanks, Starry...I don't know what to say..."

Shutter mumbled, that blush returning to his cheeks as he turned to focus on his saddlebags again.

"...So...er...um...Oh! The 'Stealthbuck', right? So, whats it do?"

"Why, it's an advanced peice of pip-buck compatible technology, developed to make ponies neigh invisible to their enemies! Look, there's a section on them in this book over here!" Starry hopped over to Techno excitedly, and yanked the robots book away from him with her levitation. With only turn of the pages, she managed to pull the book open to the section on pipbucks as she was trotting back toward Shutter.

"See? It's a sorta small section, this book deals primarily with robots, but there's a small subchapter which talks about stealth bucks! There should be a slot on your pipbuck that you can fit it into! The thing runs on batteries, so it only lasts for a few minutes before it's fried, and the invisibility isn't exactly perfect, but if you combine it with some regular sneaking, you should be very nearly invisible!"

Athanix just lay back to the bench taking up the whole thing with his bags and himself. He had his ledger up above him as he held it with both hooves and flipped through it's contents. After flipping back and forth through the pages a couple times and mumbling random crap to himself, he flipped himself over and sat up straight on the seat as he wrote some more notes in the back of his ledger.

'Ponies are very weird when it comes to their views on more sensitive material.' Athanix wrote down. He circled it a couple times at the top of the page and pulled out a paper clip. He then proceeded to clip a page or two of the pages he wanted to save for further investigation.

He rolled the pencil around in his mouth as he thought. TAking the clip out and sectioning off a few more pages he reasoned he would need the space. For both his new section on pony psychology, as well as these fancy shmancy pieces of gadgetry that they called stealthbucks.

This was going to be a long ride.

Shutter would look at the page, glancing back and forth from the text to the small chip.

"Wow...So...Basically it's got an invisibility spell loaded into it? Thats...one amazing chip! I'll have to keep it safe untill I really need it then..."

Shutter said, as he slipped the small chip back into his saddlebags.

"That kind of thing can't be cheap though...I'll have to try hard to find out what Ditzy wanted me to bring back, I've gotta repay that sort of generosity."

With that, Shutter gave a glance towards Techno.

"Hey, Techno. You know Ditzy, right? Any idea what she might have wanted me to get? She seemed pretty sure that I'd know it when I saw it..."

"Hey! I was reading that!" Techno yelled as Starry took it away. "If you didn't notice, it's kind of rude to take away a book someone is reading. You could at least ask." he said, now levitating the book back since it seemed the others were done with it. He coughed and continued. "As for Ditzy, you never quite know what she wants except for when she asks for muffins, although my caps are on whatever she wants you to retrieve will stand out a bit. It's the best I can come up with at the moment, but it should be close enough." he explained to the grey stable pony, now turning back to the book and trying to find the page that was lost when Starry stole it back, mumbling something about 'Luna damned spontaneity'.

Starry hopped over toward Techno. "Are you enjoying the book? I sure love robots, I hope you do to!" Starry sat down next to Techno, and put her head well within his personal space, trying to see what he was reading. She briefly lifted her head to look at Shutter as she spoke to him, before returning to the book.

"You don't think she wanted you to steal anything, do you?" Starry asked.

Techno shook his head. "Nah, Ditzy wouldn't give us a mission that involved stealing something from anything less than raiders. Not that I rank slavers any higher. And yes, I do like the book quite a bit, especially this part here on the inner workings of Sparkle technology: How computers, Pipbucks, all that other fancy electronic stuff works. Who knows, might just come in handy one o' these days." he said to Starry as he flipped back to the page he mentioned, not really caring about his personal space.

Shutter gave a nod.

"Yeah, she was far too nice, she'd probably never ask anypony to steal anything unless really bad ponies had i-"

It was at this point, that the rest of what techno had just said, sunk in.

"Wait, what?! SLAVERS?! What are you talking about Techno? We're just heading to a town to set up a trade deal! It's not like any slavers are involved, right?"

Shutter stated as he turned to look at Starry, even just the mention of Slavers making him a bit panicky.

Lucky, who was laying on his back with his eyes closed, was the first to reply.

"You don't know anything about Old Appleloosa, do you? Oh boy, I can see where this is going..."

He sighed and went for his flask.

Techno nodded from his place on the bench, still focused on the book. "C'mon, Shutter, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were still fresh out o' the stable." he said with a chuckle. "Anyway, I'll enlighten you on Old Appleoosa. It's a slaver town that has most of what Stableton needs: food, water and medicine. You ponies at Stableton have stuff that they would want: Technology. No slaves involved, and I have yet to hear of a case where Ol' Appleoosa enslaves a town their trading with, and I highly doubt they'll start with Stableton, due to their complete lack of understanding on how to work half o' that stuff you have over there." he explained to Shutter. "That's pretty much all you need to know 'bout it, other than don't bug the guards, or you mmay loose your head or other various body parts."

Starry's ears perked up at the mention of slavers. She was incredibly curious about the subject. "Wait... slavers? Like, who have slaves? You mean slavery actually exists?"

Starry had initially pulled out a book from her saddlebag, intent on reading it, but with the new line of conversation drawing her attention, she had opted to put the book away for the time being. "What do they actually do? With the slaves I mean."

"You really don't know, do ya... Well, Slavers go around the wastes taking lone wanderers into captivity and make 'em do a bunch of work. They're all treated like they're nothing and do all the work that nopony else wants to, like clean brahmin pens or build stuff. They're usually taken to Old Appleoosa to be sold and traded for, which is why Old Appleoosa is a prosperous town. I think it's safe to say that we're not setting up for slave trade, but just supplies. I'm sure that Ol' Appleoosa could really use some of that fancy tech you got from that stable." Techno explained, laying out what exactly they wer edoing and what slavers were. "Lucky, if you have anything to add, go ahead. I'm sure I missed something."

"You didn't really miss anything," Lucky started.

"But you sure as hell downplayed a lot of shit."

Lucky sat up on his haunches, a grim look on his face.

"Slaves aren't treated like nothing. It's much worse than that. They're viewed as property, objects, not even intelligent creatures. Slaves have no rights, no freedoms, and their lives are worth less than the standard brahmin. You want to see some Goddess awful shit, you go to Old Appleloosa."

He lowered his head towards the floor.

"I've been there a couple times myself. Keep your eyes away from the guards, and don't speak to the slaves."

Starry's jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Her voice relayed her shock, as the implications of the practice started to dawn on her. "Y-you mean, that sort of shit happens in the wastes? That, ponies actually do that to eachother? And the mayor is sending us to trade with those sorts of ponies?!"

Starry's head turned back and forth between Lucky and Techno, waiting for a response from either of them. "Wait!" she stopped herself, "Does the mayor even know about this?!"

Shutter just stared at the group silently. He knew all about the slavers int he wastes, he'd seen more then a few of them when he was helping groups scout around the fillydelphia ruins.

"That...that couldn't have...theres no way they would willingly send us to trade with ponies like...THAT!"

Shuuter stated, stepping closer to the group.

"Slavers are evil, simple as that...why would ANYONE who didn't share their twisted ideas on this subject ever trade with them?!"

Techno shook his head. "They have valuable supplies that Stableton needs, and they're the closest town that can actually spare it. I'd love it if they would establish trade with New Appleoosa, but right now, they can't spare enough to make a profit." he explained hopefully before sighing. "Look, I don't want Stableton trading with slavers as of now anyways. They're powerful enough as it is, we don't need to be giving them more tech to enslave the wasteland with, but it's for the better of Stableton. If that means we have to deal with higher tech slavers, then we will."

Lucky laid back down and sighed. "In all due respect, they're damn good traders, with a lot of supplies to give up. Thing is, the only thing that keeps me from killing them all myself is the fact that I am not invulnerable, and they have bigger and better guns."

He shifted on his bags.

"Last time I was there, I got shot for saying the wrong thing to a vendor. By a guard. My advice would be to just talk straight and not do anything drastic. They don't like theatrics."

Starry's muscles stiffened, and her face contorted as she tried to reign in her outrage. She would not like dealing with these ponies. She had no empathy for anypony who went out of their way to make life miserable for anypony else, and while she hadn't ever heard of slavery in the wastes, she was almost convinced that these ponies would be no better than raiders.

"Well, fine. I'm not going to like this!" Starry explained. She was trying hard to keep her anger from exploding. "But the FIRST thing I'm doing when we get there is finding these slaves! I want to see first-hand how those ponies are treated! And when we get back, I'm going to have a word with that mayor of ours!"

Starry's nostrils flared. The mayor's birthday was coming up in a few days, and Starry might have to crash the party to bring up this news. 'Come to think of it, when was the last time I had a birthday party?' Starry shook off the thought. Now was not the time to be thinking about parties.

Shutter was completely quiet as he listened to the group talk. Once he had said his few cents earlier, he couldn't bring himself to do much more then listen, and think. Stableton NEEDED this trade, it sounded like...but was it worth surviving, only to lose your soul by making this deal?

"...I...I don't know...What can we even do? Should we just stick with the plan and make the deal? Do we do something, and risk something terrible? Not to mention, what would happen to Stableton without this deal?! The mayor wouldn't send us to do this unless they were desperate, right?"

Shutter said, his voice almost cracking as he tried to make sense of this, and think of a correct solution. But one just wasn't coming to him...

The train finally arrives in Old Appleloosa. It was an hours long trip, and most of the ponies stayed awake for the entirety of it. They had gotten enough sleep on the cart-ride to New Appleloosa, so nopony was particularly tired.

The group hadn't really come to a consensus on what to do when they got to Old Appleloosa, most of the conversation they had revolved around wether or not it was ethical to be dealing with slavers at all. The consensus seemed to be that they would complete the origional mission, and see if a trade deal were even possible with Old Appleloosa before debating wether or not to go through with it.

The group departed the train after the workers from New Appleloosa opened the doors for them. They were on the main street through the town, which was lined on both sides with buildings, most one or two floors tall. There were alleyways between each building, varying between about five and ten feet(1.5 - 3 meters).

Across from the train station was a saloon, with two swinging doors. Looking beyond them, the saloon was full of ponies drinking, gambling, and smoking. There were also some lovely looking mares who seemed to be for hire.

Down the street some ways, there were a large number of ponies, all common folk by the looks of it, gathered around one particular pony, who stood atop a portable stage. He seemed to be peddling some form of snake oil, and by the looks of it, ponies were falling for it.

Along the same side of the street as the train station were two stores, one selling western apparel, and the other selling weapons and armor. Far down the street was the town hall, next door to the sheriff's office. It wasn't visible to the group, but along the road perpendicular to the sheriff's office were the slave cages. In fact, the group couldn't actually see any slave cages through the windows of the train as it entered the town.