Dealing with Slavers [CLOSED]

By now, lucky had calmed down a bit, but was still acting paranoid. He took a deep breath and said, "SHE, would be my goddess damned nightmare of a landlord. I didn't have enough caps to pay for my stall the last couple weeks, and now she wants blood!" He paused for a moment. "Last time, she took a baseball bat to my face. Hasn't healed right since." Lucky popped his jaw, and kept his ears perked, listening for the sound of angry yelling and/or screams of pain. Growing visibly nervous, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a hip flask, taking a swig and wiping his mouth. He returned the flask, and continued to search for distress.

Starry raised her eyebrows in surprise. She had been expecting something like a marefriend or a daughter who wanted to join in on a dangerous mission, but she hadn't taken Lucky to be somepony to fall behind on his rent. Starry's look of surprise faded quickly as she realized what crucial detail she had left out of her calculations.

"I figure a bar would be the ideal place to find somepony who couldn't pay their rent. That's okay though, I'm not judging. Regardless, we've still got to wait for Sparkfire. Don't worry though, if your landlord comes by, you can just hide someplace and I'll let her know you're not around. I'm good at mind-tricks like that."

Athanix just walked over to Lucky as he was freaking out, putting a hoof on his shoulder.

''Don't worry yourself mate. I still owe you a favor now don't I? Trust me on this one, I have your back.''

Athanix just put on a charming smile as he adjusted his glasses and stared out into the distance looking for some angry looking mare.

''I got a couple tricks up in my dandy bag of mystery.''

Shutter just sort of stared at the commotion blankly, his mind piecing together the details from the dialogue he had heard on his arrival.
"...Your...landlord took a bat to your face? Oh...wow..."
He mumbled, not really sure what to say.

Then, Shutter perked up, as he turned to look at Starry.
"Hey, there wouldn't happen to be a decent amount of potential for caps in this mission, would there? Maybe Lucky can earn enough to pay off his landlord when we get back, and avoid any further bat-related injuries!

And hey, if they find us before we go, I'm pretty sure we could possibly talk them into cutting him a break for a bit, especially if his potential earnings from this are high enough that it would be worth waiting, right?"

He offered, trying to be encouraging.

Lucky looked at the group with a mix of gratitude and hopelessness. "You can't convince that mare. She's an unstoppable mass of pure hatred and despair, that sucks your soul in and crushes it like a potato chip under a diamond dog's ass. Don't even try it."

Just then, a loud bellowing was heard, and a stallion was thrown through a window from a building about forty five feet from where the group was now standing.

"Oh shit," exclaimed the now terrified Lucky Draw.

Ever since Lucky draw had mentioned him being hit in the face with a bat, Techno had been digging through his bags, looking for something. "Hold up," he said, "I've got something in here that should help with that." he informed Lucky as he brought out a healing potion clenched in his levitation. He levitated it over to Lucky. "Drink up. It should fix you right up for the time being. And don't worry about me wasting one on you; I've got plenty." he said, trying to help the apparently injured pony.

"Besides, it's a mission from the Mayor. I'd be pretty certain that there'd be pay at the end, and that's not even counting the profits of whatever we find out there on the way. I'm sure by the time we get back, you'll be able to afford to live here for a few more months." he said, trying to lift not only his health, but also his mood.

That was until he saw the flying stallion. "Alright, then. Maybe I underestimated your landlord." he said, now more shocked than anything, "So, uh, Starry, we heading out soon?" he asked, nervously.

"I... uh..." Starry stammered, losing her speech for a moment. Her lip was quivering, and she was struggling to put words to what she wanted to say. "I think Sparks will have to catch up with us. Let's leave now. Last one there's a rotten, bat-beaten egg!"

With that, Starry took off galloping down the road.

"Right be-fuckin' hind you!" And with that, Lucky dashed off down the road after the pegasus as if the hounds of helll were right on his heels.

Techno turned to see the other running away. "H-hey! Wait for me!" he called after them as he turned and ran himself.

Shutter just stared, flabberghasted, at the poor Stallion that got smashed through a window.
His ears quickly perked up though, when he heard Starry, Lucky, and Techno gallop off, as he quickly turned around and broke off into his own gallop after them.

"Sweet Celestia! Lucky, I do NOT envy you when we get back from this..."

Sky wandered back to her shack, little place, thrashed, yup home. She had gotten her saddlebags on and filled them with whatever necessity's she needed, food and water. Nnot much to put in' she thought, as she went to a small box in the corner of her one room shack. She picked through the contents of the box and out came a pistol, the same one from ponyville. She looked at the clip, half loaded but still worth taking. "Hope i find some ammo on the way over there." she muttered to herself, as she got out the shack and locked the door.

Sky looked over her security barbing, making sure its still good. and to her surprise it still is. 'why didn't I this before.' she thought as she set her sights on following the group of ponies,a zebra and a dragon. Now Sky didn't want to meet them, one there were to many of them and two, they had a dragon.

Sky walked to an alleyway, between two very large shacks near the gate of stableton, there is where she saw a rather quite large group of ponies gathering. "this many ponies for a mission, this can't go well." Sky whispered to herself as she watched the group, behind some boxes in the alley.

The group had galloped quite far from town, and Starry was beginning to lose her breath. She slowed to walk. "Phew, I think we're... we're far enough away now." she was struggling to speak between breaths. She pulled out her canteen with her magic and took a gulp from it. Starry had no idea how long they had been running, but Stableton wasn't even visible on the horizon.

"Well, maybe we should stop to take a rest?" Starry offered.

/Sorry guys, gonna be AFK for about three hours, so I won't be able to start the first encounter/event until later tonight. I won this event at a laser tag place, and now I get to go back for free! Heading there soon to 'defend my championship title' as it were. :P

Athanix lifted his hood up as he rubbed his eyes with a hoof. He had taken a nap waiting for the other ponies to show up, but upon putting his glasses on he saw that his new friends were nowhere to be seen. Athanix blinked in surprise as he shifted his glasses. Had his new friends left him? The thought put a scowl on his face. Oh not these ponies too! They seemed so nice!

"REAL FUNNY GUYS! DITCH THE ZEBRA!!!" Athanix screemed at the top of his lung. He just hustled good ponies out of their food for nothing? Athanix angrily flipped his hood up as he started out the gates toward New Appleloosa. Why was it that everypony treated him like dirt? Had he done something to offend them, or did everypony he meet was still sour about that stupid war? If they had to leave for whatever reason, they could of at least woken him up. The only pony that has ever been nice to him was Amity and even that was streching it.

Athanix just sighed as he looked up at the sky a little distraught. He never got a break out here in the wastes.

Ever.

Techno skidded to a stop next to starry and promptly fell to the ground, panting heavily. "Next time... I'm just... Gonna... Stay and... Risk it..." he said from his place on the ground, almost hyperventilating. He stopped and took a few deep breaths until he had his breath under control again. He turned to see Lucky and Shutter following, but not Arthanix. "Starry, we left Arthanix at Stableton!" he realized, a bit too late.

Shutter let out a few deep breaths as he skidded to a stop beside Techno...he wasn't a slow pony, but he used up far more energy in that panic-fueled dash then he'd have liked.

He did stop focusing on how out of breath he was soon, surprised when Techno pointed out that Arthanix wasn't with them.
"...The Zebra? Wasn't he right with us just before we left? What happened to him?!"

He asked with confusion, not quite sure how they ended up leaving him behind...but the 'how' probably wasn't the important part here, and he shook his head in an attempt to refocus his thoughts.

"Er, anyway...If that's the case...then what do we do? We already left, and Stableton's out of sight. But we can't really just abandon him back there, can we? What if that crazy landlady of Lucky's saw him with us before we hightailed it out of town? Poor guy might be getting the same beating he did right now to get him to spill where we went with Lucky!"

Shutter then glanced quickly over at Lucky, his expession of slight fear making it clear that, while he had never met this Mare, the bellow and window-breaking had left a decent impression on him already.

"Lucky, you know your landlady better then us...does that sound like something they might do? If so...I'd really rather not have the guilt of going on, only to find out this guy got utterly destroyed because we didn't go back for him..."

Lucky stopped next to the pegasus, and sat down, panting hard again. "Goddesses have...mercy on...his soul...if...she finds him..." He reached into his pocket and got ahold of his flask again, drinking deeply of the contents. He shook his head, clenched his face, and then whooped loudly.

"Damn that's a good burn!"

He then turned to look in the direction of the town. "We should probably send someone back to get the others, before the crazed witch tears them a new one to get to me. I don't even KNOW that one poor bastard, and she threw him through a store front!"

Lucky put the flask back into his barding, and looked back at the blue pegasi.

"I think you should do it, since you're the only ones who can escape if she decides you look small enough to beat down for information."

Sky just watched as the group fled, which surprised Sky. Just after lucky returned to the group, he started shout about a landlord. After that a stallion flew out through a window, landing on the ground hard. They all dashed out the gate, galloping hard out of the town. "Now i see why they left in such a hurry" Sky said to herself, as she walked out the of the alleyway she noticed the zebra had been left behind.

Looking very confused, noticing his allies all but left. He stated to yell something, about 'ditching the zebra' So she walked up to him. "you do know they left without you because they got freaked out by the stallion flying out the window." Sky pointed at the stallion.

Athanix just spun around with his hood up and an angry scow all over his face.

''That changes nothing! Wait no, that makes this even worse!!'' Athanix said gritting his teeth together! ''Just leave me here with whatever horrible monstrosity that threw that stallion out the window?'' He said standing on his two back legs and waving his forehooves frantically in the air. He then plopped back down on all fours and continued on his way to New Appleloosa.

He stopped once and addressed the Pegasus without looking at her and spoke.
''I know when I'm being ditched. They left to save there own hides without giving the slightest thought on who they might of left for dead.'' Athanix then continued to walk for a bit.

And then he started chuckling to himself, and that chuckle soon became a laugh. Athanix whipped a tear from his eye as he began to sniffle a bit.

''And to think I actually found some decent ponies. Only Amity has been this nice too me, but now he hates my guts.''And with that last comment, Athanix trotted away from the gates, slowly quickening his pace all the while.

Starry frowned deeply, overcome with remorse at the prospect of Anthanix being trampled by Lucky's monster-of-a-landmare.

"You know, while I was sort-of joking about the whole 'last one there is a rotten, bat-beaten egg' thing, a part of me did understand that should she chase us, the slowest among us would not likely make it. That makes me feel terrible for putting a joke to it."

Starry looked back and forth between the ponies in her midst, none of whome seemed to grasp the morbid truth of this situation.

"Maybe we should head back and dig a grave for him? I didn't know the zebra for long, but I think it's the least we could do."

"Oh Goddesses..." Lucky put a hoof to his face. "We better go help him."

Lucky started galloping back to town, albeit at a slower pace, to take on the manic mare that he owed money to.

The thought crossed his mind that he was probably going to get destroyed by an older mare again, but he pushed it aside when he remembered that if anyone was going to get their ass beaten by the old witch, it should be him. HE was the one that pissed her off after all.

(Level up, new perk aquired: Intense Training [1])

"Woah, woah, woah! Let's not go pronouncing him dead just yet! Maybe the Landlady didn't see him with us? O-or maybe they're just beating him senseless, rather then outright murdering him right now?"

Shutter offered, trying to bring back a bit of hope to the party.
However, when Lucky started running off, he felt a clench of dread in his gut, like him running off by himself probably wasn't the best idea...

"Hey, Lucky! Wait up! I'll go too! You never know when you might need some backup!"
He called out, as he galloped after him, the panic making him forget about how out of breath he was before.

The only problems with takin naps alone was that nopony was around to wake you up. Luckily the angry lamentations of a zebra left behind was enough to awake Spark Fire from his slumber.

"Who, what?! Is it time to leave?" Spark Fire had said as he crawled out of an alleyway.

He shook the grogginess away, and crawl'd out into the open, toward the Zebra he had seen from the Inn not that long ago. His dirty cloak and cowl flapping in the wind.

"Hey! Your the Zebra that was suppose to help with the smooth talking! Do you know when the rest of the group is going to be here? I kinda got tired of waiting alone and took a nap..." He said with a shrug.

Athanix spun around to meet this new voice. He was about to tell who ever approached him off. But upon seeing the dragon from earlier, Athanix sighed and let go of a little anger. He had no reason to be mad at the dragon, they were in the same boat.

''They ditched us to save themselfs from some crazed pony.'' Athanix said pushing his glasses up. With a warm smile he addressed the dragon. ''Hey, I didn't get your name down at the tavern. Mines Athanix, pleasure to meet a fine dragon such as yoyself out here in the wastes.'' He then stuck a hoof out for the obligatory hoof-shake. Although he wasn't entirely sure it could be called that.

''They ditched us to save themselfs from some crazed pony.'' Athanix said pushing his glasses up. With a warm smile he addressed the dragon. ''Hey, I didn't get your name down at the tavern. Mines Athanix, pleasure to meet a fine dragon such as yoyself out here in the wastes.'' He then stuck a hoof out for the obligatory hoof-shake. Although he wasn't entirely sure it could be called that.

"Ditched us?" The Confused Dragon squeaked, "But why would Starry do that?" He wondered.

Remembering his manners, he looked the Zebra straight in the eye, clasped his hoof firmly but not too hard, and said, "My name is Spark Fire, it is a pleasure to meet you." as he was taught to say, many years ago...

Sky stayed wide eyed at the zebras response as he trotted away, "ok, he has some problems."Sky muttered under her breath, she sighed and looked on ahead. 'i guess i should head on.' she unfurled her wings and took of into the sky hoping she could get on ahead of the group of ponies.