Deathtrap Division: Virgil's "Superweapons"

by Senor Oblongo

The Workshop

The trip to the factory was largely uneventful, giving Bernard a chance to think about the absolute mess he had gotten himself into. At least the cannibal mountains looked quite nice from above, providing a great backdrop for the crisis Bernard was having. Fortunately, the workshop came into view before Bernard could sink too deeply into his melodramatic self-pity session. Nestled in a valley between two large mountains, the workshop was, to Bernard’s surprise, a full-fledged, well developed arms plant, complete with a main production building and several warehouses that were built into one of the mountainsides. The valley also featured several outbuildings and even a group of decently sized cabins, indicating that Bernard’s stay would indeed be long-term. Finally, connecting it to the outside world was an airport with a dirt runway, several wooden landing harnesses for airships of various sizes, and a few sizable aircraft hangars. Somewhat calmed by the sight of the trappings of civilization, and the faint hope that this may not be completely impossible, Bernard composed himself and stepped off the airship as soon as it landed.

The airfield was mostly empty, with a thick layer of snow covering almost everything excluding the runway. The only creatures that could be seen were a small group headed towards the airship; two ponies and a griffon, all wrapped up in several layers of clothing to protect from the freezing cold. As they approach, one of the ponies walks forward and introduces himself.

“Welcome to Crevasse Hold arms plant, my name is Gear Gleam and I'm the foreman, good to meet you- er, doc?”

“Gear! It's good to see you again! How are you doing up here in the mountains?”

Surprised, the earth pony starts slowly, “I’m fine, I guess, thanks. Hey wait a minute, I didn’t get any paperwork saying anyone was hurt, and we’ve got our own doctor here anyways, what are you doing up here?”

“Oh, ah, it's a long story,” Bernard stammers out, his anxiety returning to him, “But the short of it is that I’ve been hired on as the director of the plant! Isn't that crazy!”

Even though only the pony’s eyes were visible, Bernard could see him work through surprise, then a moment of suspicion, before finally settling on exasperation. Gear quickly introduces the other pony as Misty Diamond, the Director of magical development, and the griffon as Lars the ‘external acquisitions’ lead.

“Come on, doc, we’ve got a lot to discuss and a lot to show you. First of all, do you know anything about what we’re doing here?”

“Would you be surprised if I said not really?”

“I kinda figured. Well right now we’re working on an infantry kit centered around Misty’s latest and greatest invention: a rifle that uses a big crystal to store and fire spells. We’ve figured out how to get it to fire and not just blow up in your face, but they still take a lot of care to make and use. We’re coming up on the factory now.”

The main factory building was a large, unassuming brick structure with tall windows. Once inside, Gear leads the group up a flight of stairs to a catwalk observing the entire floor. The whole building was one large room subdivided into many sections, each one working on a different part of the crystal rifles, going from raw iron and minecarts full of crystals to a handful of the very strange looking weapons. What must have been hundreds if not thousands of griffons and ponies working in small groups oversaw their parts of the process, doing everything manually. It was very organized, no doubt, but it was quite primitive overall.

Gear was in the middle of explaining the general process of making the rifles when Bernard interrupted, “Where are all of the machines?”

Now it was Gear’s turn to be embarrassed, “Well you see, it's quite difficult to get machines up here, and I think we’re managing just fine with magic alone.”

“Gear, there’s clearly a lot of time being lost here that could be solved with a simple conveyor belt. Most of these poor creatures don't even have power tools.”

Misty Diamond stepped forward to defend Gear, “Mr. Rochingne, It was hard enough to gather enough magically inclined personnel to make this factory function at all, and from what I am gathering, you are most certainly not qualified to be questioning our efforts here.”

“Well you might be right about the not qualified part, but I might have a solution for you. Ms. Whitefeather has said that anything we need, I can just call her and request it from her.”

“Well that's certainly a change of policy,” Interjected Gear, “ What did you do to get her to agree to that?”

“Well I didn't do much of anything, I figure she sees this as an opportunity for her more than for any of us, and I’m just going along with things. Maybe she just needed someone who could take the fall if things don't go her way here. But the fact of the matter is that we’re all part of whatever scheme Ms. Whitefeather has planned, and we need to come up with something big.What I really need to see is the research labs.”

“Yes I suppose we’ll just have to see what we can do. Let's finish getting you acquainted with the facility and we’ll show you to your quarters.”

The rest of the facility was lightly staffed due to the snow. This gave Bernard ample time to observe the facilities and resources that were available. Most notably, the labs were well stocked with magical crystals. Misty’s team had already made great strides in applying the magics they had found, as well as some of their own, to crystals of all sizes. The sheer potential of it all made Bernard smile to himself. This feeling was compounded when Lars took the lead and showed him to his private hangar and warehouse. There, all manner of smuggled equipment was on display, from exotic eastern griffonian rifles to Wingbardian tankettes to a couple of operational Wheatley bombers, flown all the way from Equestria in some daring heist. Bernard could have spent days ogling all the trophies on display, but above all else, this showed that Lars was very good at his job, and Bernard was certain that between Lars and Ms. Whitefeather, the factory would not be left wanting for anything. After those exciting developments, the group led Bernard to a decently sized cabin where he would be staying.

“Thank you Gear, I appreciate all your help with this, I know it's a lot of pressure and all. I hope you’re not too upset about me coming unannounced.”

“Honestly? If you can get that conveyor belt you were talking about, I’ll be pretty happy.”

Bernard chuckled, “Well we’ll try to do a bit more than that, now won’t we?”

“We’ll see,” Gear said, turning to walk out the door, “Just let us know what you come up with.”

A final wave and the door closed, leaving Bernard alone in the quaint cabin. He did have some ideas to move forward, the assembly line improvements were an obvious starting point. He knew that Gear and the others could be depended on, and he could probably convince them to help with almost any project. The magic rifles were a good start and would keep Ms. Whitefeather happy for some time until he could get other prototypes out. Now he just had to come up with some new prototypes. He let several ideas ferment, getting some pens and paper to help him out. However, several hours later, he looked at all his notes and realized that they were little more than disjointed writings with little basis in reality, much less any utility. He couldn’t present any of this to the others, he was on thin ice as it was. No, he needed someone he could trust to help him develop these ideas to a workable phase, someone who knew more than he did about weapons and such. A name comes to him as he sits back down in his chair. Bernard clears the scribblings off his new desk, pulls the paper out of the typewriter, replacing it with a fresh one, and begins to type a letter to an old friend.