Sombra and Hope parted ways as one headed to school and the other headed to work. Sombra figured he might as well go to the factory, at least it would give him something to do while he figured out what exactly his plan was. However, even in downtown, he felt rather unsafe.
There was guards on every road, walking in pairs with spears clipped to their sides. Their eyes roamed around, and Sombra easily assumed that the events of yesterday had led to this. He resulted to slipping into the shadows to get to the factory. He slipped between the bared gates before he reformed and found Big J re-fuelling an oven.
“Heya lad how ya doin?” his face was covered in a streaks coal dust.
“Erm, a bit shaken, given the circumstance”
“The guards yeah?”
“Pretty sure Amore knows I exist now, since her nephew just so happened to be at school yesterday” Big J motioned for him to follow as again he was lead up to the office.
“I thought she knew of ya before hoof?”
“I think it was a rumour before, but she most likely has an idea of my whereabouts now” they settled in the office again, Big J sitting on his chair and Sombra relaxing onto some pillows. And again, Flops leaped down from her cat tree, she sat down in front of Sombra and proceeded to watch Opal with keen eyes.
(“No”)
(“She’s not doing anything”)
(“It’s looking at me”)
“So, I assume yer come ‘ere because you want somethin’ to do while you avoid school like the plague”.
“Yes”
“Righ’, well I have noticed those guards ‘ve been peering through the bars so ya might be better off up ‘ere with me”
“What do you do up here?” he couldn’t exactly think of why there would be a need to be away from the actual factory.
“The wonderful world of business my friend” Big J began to explain the business side to his trade, which he described as the boring but needs to be done part. He told Sombra that there was two main parts to what he did. There was first organising trade, which consisted of shelves full of files and papers. They were the biggest suppliers to ponies who made decorative metal bits due to the colours of the metals they made, and they were hoping to expand trade once the train tracks connected up to them. Then there was the other part, all of which was mostly stored in one massive book. It contained every houses address, the size of said house and the electricity bill.
“I would prefer a way t’ give a more precise reading, but we just estimate on the amount by size”.
“So a bigger house pays for more electricity”.
“Yeah essentially, say a small house down ‘ere might pay us only a hundred bits, bu’ a mansion should give us a couple thousand”.
“What about the castle, surely they pay the most?”.
“well they curren’ly owe us about a hundred ‘nd seventy grand”.
“Oh, is their not a punishment for not paying?”.
“I ain’ playin’ with the fire of shutting off the castles power” Sombra let him ramble about his business for a bit longer.
“So, when can I help out here? I can shadow now so I can quickly disappear if someone looks in”.
“yeah ‘course mate, when d’ya want to start?”
He spent the next few months adjusting to the factory work, and while he did spend a lot of time handling the business side with Big J, he often helped with the multitudes of heavy lifting, whether it be a crate full of ingots or carrying bags of coal into the generator rooms. That weightlifting was much more enjoyable than he realised it would be, since before the only real muscle exertion he got was hunting, but it was nice to use different muscles as well.
He didn’t need the money he earned, he had no real need for pony food, and he could fit in any of the cloths, so he split up his monthly eighty bits. forty went to Cloud and Miss Chestnut, while Hope and Fleur received twenty each. What typically happened after that is that he would remain in shadow and follow Hope and Fleur around, technically going shopping with them, casting a string of shadow out to nod when they tried on outfits. He did wish he could just walk with them, but the guards continued their rounds.
As he went through these months he hadn’t made much progress on the little spark of a plan he had conjured up, and he didn’t know really were to start. His only real idea was that any information on if the umbrum were even still alive would be inside the castle.
It was just him and Hope this weekend, and off course she weaved her way without thinking to the candle shop again. She handed over not even a fraction of her empty candle jars to the shop keeper, and as Sombra creeped his way up to the top corner of the shop, he noticed that the pegasus guard that had bought him to the factory was also sitting behind the counter, except he wasn’t a pegasus anymore. As Hope went to raid the shelves, Sombra formed his head up in the corner, the two stallions noticed him, and the guard smiled.
“Its nice seeing you strong enough to shadow” his voice was weak and deflated, and there wasn’t a bright glimmer in his eyes or shine to his fur. Sombra could only meekly smile in response, there wasn’t exactly a point in asking “how are you?” when the two stumps for wings said everything.
“Um…do you still have contact with others still in the castle?”
“I should be able to reach them, your not doing something stupid are you?”
“Yes, potentially”
“Oh, right then” he stood from his chair and motioned for Sombra to follow him into the storage of the shop. Sombra slinked through the air to a small compact room filled to the brim with boxes upon boxes of candles.
“Hey, err, I’m not sure if I ever got your name, since you essentially saved my life-“
“Silver”
“Right so, do you know if their was any conversation that went on that surrounded what actually happened to the umbrum?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I remember something about a spell that went wrong, but I’ve had about a hundred counts of amnesia since so I’m not too sure, but I know other guards also got out so I can ask them, anything else your after? And what exactly are you doing?”
“I first want to know what’s happened to the rest of the umbrum and if I can get them back, but I’ve noticed how Amore has got all off you in some sort of controlled state of terror”.
“Yeah that’s one way you can put it”.
“I think there’s a few hundred families on a hit list now”.
“What how?!” the part that made him a guard, a need to protect his ponies, near threw Silver into the boxes.
“School, with the amount that knew of me but most likely didn’t say anything…” there was a silence where Silver shrunk into a state of despair, rubbing his head before he continued.
“I’ll get on that, what are you doing now?”
“Not sure, if they’re…if they’re all gone theirs no point doing anything so…”
“You just stay low for now, come back in a week and I should have something for you” They left the storage room and Sombra found Hope with heavy laden bags.
“How much did you get this time?”
“Enough for a few weeks”
“I’m tellin’ you lass don’t burn your house down” the shopkeeper told her.
“Its fiiine” she waved a hoof and began to trot out the shop, Sombra and the shopkeeper exchanging a look before he dissolved into Hope’s shadow again. Sombra retuned a week later, and again he met Silver in the storage room.
“Right so, my mates remembered overhearing her. Amore isn’t talented in magic so the blast at the end of the revolution was her using the crystal heart to try and kill all of you but given that she can feel a large part of power underground there is reason to believe she accidently banished them instead”.
“So, they’re alive”.
“Yes, potentially at least” Sombra heavily sighed in relief, he knew know, that besides his sire, his tribe was still out there.
“If you need anything else from that castle, I’ll try to hook you up with it yeah”.
“Thanks” Sombra left and weaved his way back to the factory where Opal was waiting for him.
(“You get it?”)
(“Yeah, we reckon they might be banished underground”)
(“That’s going to be a lot of digging”)
(“You’re not wrong, but then we don’t even know a precise location”)
(“We could only assume it is near by if she can sense it from the castle, and that means its most likely directly under the empire. I’ve seen many mining outposts around, but I reckon their heavily monitored so they don’t go to far under the houses and cause sink holes and stuff”)
(“Is this…going to go morally grey very fast? Given the risk of sink holes and its going to take a lot of forced labour to dig”)
(“I mean, anything more morally bright then whatever Amore did”)
(“So, I guess I might be forcing the ponies to dig under their own homes, not really sure I want to do that, seems a bit cruel”)
(“Sometimes being selfish is the only option”)
(“If…if I’m going to do this, I should tell Hope shouldn’t I?”)
(“She seems to have caught on anyway, so it would be cruel to leave her in the dark for any longer, she should be old enough to understand now”)
(“Ok”)