//------------------------------// // 18 - The Art of Conversation // Story: The Amulet Job // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// The band’s rehearsal had gone well, all instrumentalists performing satisfactorily (including herself, Lyra was proud to say. But then again, Third Lyre). Rainbow Dash had been in a corner of the room at some point, but Lyra had only noticed when she was leaving a third of the way through. With the rehearsal done now, ponies and griffons had been filing out for a while. In fact, by now, the room was mostly empty, except for two ponies. Second Lyre plucked the strings of Lyra’s lyre once, twice, thrice. She strummed up, then down. She frowned. “It’s…” She bit her lip. “I mean, it’s a good sound, but from something this expensive, I would’ve expected a bit more.” “I know, right?” said Lyra. “It sounds better on the higher or lower ends of the scale, though. Listen.” She plucked a few of the highest-pitched strings to demonstrate. Second Lyre watched the string intently, her ears turned towards it. As the sound began to die off, she said, “Okay, that was nice. Barely any distortion, very crisp.” She strummed a few nearby strings and grinned at the harmonics. “Yeah, those tones are super pure.” “It’s too bad most songs don’t go that high,” said Lyra. “Otherwise I bet I’d get a lot more bang for my bit.” “What’re you even paying for? You could get a lyre that’s almost as good for a lot less.” “I dunno. Brand recognition?” “Brand recognition. For… a lyre.” “You were jealous the first time you saw it! It must be working! It’s not that different from fashion. You wear a polo work shirt and nopony looks twice at you. You slap a tag on it declaring it’s from some famous designer and suddenly you’re a trendsetter.” Second Lyre rolled her eyes. “Oh, sure, but that’s fashion, and fashion is stupid.” Lyra thought of a certain pony’s tendency to go into relentless histrionics whenever a fabric was two shades too light or too dark and was about to agree. Then she remembered said pony’s ability to make a ten-bit hat make it look like it was worth a thousand and changed her tack. “Is it really that different, though? It’s all marketing, anyway. They-” A staff member leaned into the room and knocked on the doorframe. “Hate to break this up,” she said, “but we need to lock this room. And, yes, it is all marketing.” Once Lyra and Second Lyre had exhausted the guard’s conversational options regarding fashion and lyres, they made their way back for the casino. “Thanks for giving me a look at it,” said Second Lyre. “Even if it wasn’t what I’d hoped.” “No problem. Out of curiosity, do you know of any good places to play around here? Outside of our rooms and…” Lyra jerked her head back towards the band’s rehearsal room. “I could use a change of scenery.” Second Lyre shook her head. “Not in the casino, no. And even our rooms aren’t the best. You know they’re right below the airship landing pad? I’m paranoid a ship’s gonna come in while I’m practicing and drown my music out with its wind.” Right. The airships. Lyra had spent so much time in the villa she’d forgotten about that. “They don’t come often, do they?” “Nah. I’m just a worrywart.” Second Lyre’s grin was stuffed to the brim with self-deprecation. “I went up there once — the doors’re unlocked and the guards I saw didn’t stop me — and didn’t see any airship around for miles. Anyway, outside the casino, I found some pretty good places…” “A laser grid?” Starlight asked. “Are you serious?” “Apparently,” said Sunburst. “I, I didn’t see it myself, but, yeah. A laser grid.” “But they’re easy to get by! That’s why they appear in heist stories so often! I mean, for Celestia’s sake, elevators can get by this one!” ‘Well, this one, it’s, it’s apparently really tightly packed with the, uh, beams and such.” “Still…” Sometimes, Starlight wondered if the universe was laughing at her. She really, truly did. Need help for a heist? Put out a classified ad in the paper. A hodgepodge collection of ponies shows up? The perpetually-cross-eyed mare seemed to know all the tricks simply through reading, and that was just the start. The casino’s defenses? Including a laser grid. She hadn’t even gotten started on her Ponyville life. “Anyway, uh…” Sunburst looked through her notes and her first wax impressions again. “These’re, this looks pretty good. Using candles, that, that was creative.” He picked up one of the molds and squinted at it while turning it over and over in his magic. “Tell that to Gilda,” said Starlight. “She’s the one who came up with the idea. I just mentioned we could use wax.” “She did? Hmm. We were lucky these candles weren’t, weren’t tallow.” Sunburst glanced up. “Are you feeling alright?” “Sure. Why?” Starlight hadn’t thought she’d looked out of it in any way. She definitely didn’t feel out of it. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this, this… mellow.” Sunburst made wavy motions with his hooves. “Smooth and, and chill and… relaxed.” “I can be relaxed!” protested Starlight. Sunburst’s eyebrow might as well have had a rocket attached to it, it went up so fast. “Oh, really?” He started tapping his frog with his other hoof. “When we were young, you were hyper and super excitable.” “So were you! That’s how kids are supposed to be!” “And I wish Flurry Heart wasn’t. When we met again in the Crystal Empire, you were high-strung and evasive.” “Can you blame me? After what I did?” “And about a week ago, when this all began, you were a nervous, self-hating wreck. But now, you’re so… Yeah.” “You forgot about how I was chilling just fine when Spike met Thorax. And what about when Trixie- No, you weren’t in Ponyville. Or maybe- Still not in Ponyville. Or…” Starlight stared at nothing and flicked her ears. “Wow, you have not been around much.” “But seriously,” said Sunburst, “it’s- You almost feel like a whole new mare. Kinda. Sorta. Maybe. What did you do today?” “Watched those locomotive things, watched Derpy let herself get hit by a train, and worked on the magic in this.” Starlight tapped the wax mold. “I think it’s the magic. I worked on magic a lot with Twilight, so being able to just kick back and cast some spells is… It feels like home.” It was easy. It was useful. It was interesting. How could she not love it? “Yep, that’d explain it,” Sunburst said, nodding. “Anyway, the, uh, I think these molds’ll work just fine, so if you can help me with these fiber-arcanic rerouters, we can- Wait. Did you say Derpy got hit by a train?” Educating somepony (someling?) on deception. Not exactly what Bon Bon had expected when moving to a small country town. True, about ninety-seven point four three percent (rounding down) of what she’d experienced in the past few years hadn’t been what she’d expected, but this was too weird, with its intersection with her old training. She was in one of the villa’s unused side rooms, all the furniture pushed up against the walls. Bon Bon paced back and forth in front of Thorax, who shuffled his hooves (was that the right term for the things on the ends of his legs?) and buzzed his wings. Bon Bon sighed and said to him, “You know, you’re the one who ought to be teaching me this.” “I, I know,” said Thorax. “But I-” Bon Bon waved him off. “Don’t worry, we’ll make it work. I’m not completely helpless when it comes to pretending to be somepony I’m not.” She squinted at Thorax and tapped her chin. “But you have the advantage of being able to change what you look like… Appearance might not be everything, but it’s a lot.” She frowned. “Give me an unassuming pony.” With a blue flash, Thorax changed into his little Crystal Hoof ponysona. He rubbed one leg against the other and smiled hopefully up at Bon Bon. “Not bad, but nope,” Bon Bon said, shaking her head. “You’re a crystal pony, those’re rare outs-” Another flash. Crystal Hoof was gone and had changed into a slightly larger earth pony version of himself. But even with that connection, Bon Bon couldn’t find any specific feature to identify him. The shade of his coat was the most average blue you could imagine. His mane was straight and of average length. He wasn’t tall and he wasn’t short. He wasn’t big and he wasn’t small. He was perfectly, utterly forgettable. A smile slowly crept onto Bon Bon’s face. “Good,” she said, nodding. “Good. Smug pony.” A snow-white mare with a monocle and a ridiculously embroidered dress looked down her nose at Bon Bon, raising an eyebrow. “Nice. Non-noble smug.” A tall stallion in a business suit with a smirk Bon Bon already wanted to slug. “Yes! Important and aloof.” Another stallion in a different business suit who didn’t hold himself as high, was much more groomed, and cast an eye of disdain over everything. “Smart but not nerdy.” A glasses-wearing mare with her mane in a bun, wearing slightly rumpled business casual. “Sexy.” Lyra. “I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I meant generally sexy.” A sleek, lithe mare with a flowing mane to rival Celestia’s and a perfectly sculpted face and body combo that’d turn straight mares gay and gay stallions straight. Bon Bon felt her heartbeat speed up. “Okay,” she said, “at least you know how ponies respond to looks.” The mare dissolved into Thorax. “Really?” he asked hopefully. He somehow managed to look adorably dorky in spite of his fangs, which seemed to be a talent of his. “Definitely,” said Bon Bon. “With how quickly you went to each shape, you’ve really got a handle on how to make a first impression on looks alone.” Thorax stared at Bon Bon, blinked, then bared his fangs and hissed loudly. Two point seven violent seconds later, before the dust had settled, Bon Bon was on her back, the tip of Thorax’s tongue clamped between her front hooves, pinning Thorax to the wall by his throat with one of her rear hooves. “Tholly,” Thorax choked out. “Inthtinct.” Bon Bon blinked and released Thorax’s tongue. “Sorry. Reflex.” She withdrew her hoof and Thorax fell to the ground with a gasp. “Just-” Thorax coughed and rubbed his neck. “Just what kind of reflex was that?” he wheezed. Monster hunter’s reflex, said Sweetie Drops’s mind. “Long story,” said Bon Bon’s mouth. “I’ll get to it later.” Right after ‘never’. Thorax coughed again and rolled his legs. “Just… please don’t do it again.” “Sure.” After a moment’s awkward silence, Bon Bon continued. “Anyway, body language can say a lot, just as much as the actual words. The way you stand tells the listener a lot about what you’re thinking. For instance, somepony asks you a question you don’t know the answer to. Where do you look?” Thorax rustled his hooves and- “Don’t shift your weight. You’ll look uneasy and they’ll know you’re lying.” Thorax blinked and looked down. “Don’t look down. You’ll look guilty and they’ll know you’re lying.” Thorax clenched his teeth and looked up. “Don’t look up. You’ll look like you’re trying to think of the answer and they’ll know you’re lying.” “Well, where do I look?” snapped Thorax. “It’s not like there’s a lot of other places to look!” “That’s simple,” said Bon Bon. She gently grabbed Thorax’s head between her front hooves and pointed it at her. “Look at your mark. Keep looking at your mark.” She released him. “But if I’m looking at her all the time,” asked Thorax, “won’t she be able to tell I’m lying from my expressions?” Bon Bon shook her head. “Some ponies can, but knowing when someone’s lying just from their face is a lot harder than it’s made out to be. Nearly impossible with a complete stranger, like you. Just try not to do anything like bite your lip. And even that can be shrugged off if you mutter something like, ‘What was it?’, like you’re just having trouble remembering.” “So…” Thorax murmured, “just… talk?” “Right,” said Bon Bon. “But don’t stare. Staring is memorable, and you don’t want to be memorable.” She started pacing, never taking her eyes off of Thorax. As she kept talking, Thorax started nodding. “Don’t use seven words when four will do, but don’t condense it to two. Be funny, but don’t make her laugh. Be that guy, but never anything more; she has to like you and forget you the moment you’re gone. And whatever you do, for Celestia’s sake, don’t, under any circumstances, ever-” Sunburst poked his head into the room. “Um, uh, hey? Bon Bon? Can, can you come here for a second?” “Sure.” Bon Bon trotted after Sunburst. “What’s up?” He led her into a room where Starlight was firing some spells at a gem and those same spells were coming out of a different gem. A mirror had been swiped from one of the bathrooms, but it wasn’t reflecting the room from the right angle. Bon Bon noticed another gem sitting on top of a painting where the reflection was seemingly coming from. “So, um, obviously,” Sunburst said, “we’ve got the fiber arcanic transference spell done-” “Already?” “Ninety percent of visualization spells run on the same basic principles and ninety percent of what’s left runs on the same slightly more advanced principles,” said Sunburst. “If you know how it works-” “Which he does! Like, a lot!” piped in Starlight. “-it’s not that hard. Trust me. It works.” “So now what?” asked Bon Bon. “Now, we need to get back into that, into that room to place the transference gems,” said Sunburst. “Like we just did-” “I’d rather not do it that way, if we have other options,” said Bon Bon. “A new guard forgetting her key once is nothing special, forgetting it twice is suspicious.” Ponies were good at noticing patterns, unfortunately. It was something that’d tripped her up several times before. “Then we’ll need a key,” said Sunburst. “Which, which we can make-” Starlight held up a large chunk of wax. “-but we, we’ll need a real one to copy.” “Mmhmm.” Always the tricky part. Snatch the original, make a copy, return the original before anypony noticed it was missing. But, hey, copying the plans had gone alright; maybe they could go two for two. “Also,” said Starlight, “we don’t have many gems left and not enough bits to buy more, so I think Thorax needs to-” “Hey!” Bon Bon, Sunburst, and Starlight looked up. Thorax was standing in the doorway, glaring at Bon Bon and baring his fangs. “What,” he asked, “am I never supposed to do?” “Leave a sentence unfinished.” Thorax cocked his head. “…Did you all plan that?” “No. But it was a good lesson anyway, don’t you think?” It seemed to Bon Bon that Thorax’s grin was very reluctant. “Sure. But can we get back to the, um, training now?” “Brainstorm, I’ll get back to you,” Bon Bon whispered to Sunburst. Rainbow spiraled down towards the villa lazily, still keeping an eye out for tails. None besides her own (and a fine tail it was, too). But she knew she wasn’t getting worked up over nothing; it’d already happened once and it could happen again. She landed lightly on the villa’s doorstep. After about a minute of searching, she found Gilda on the magnificent couch, eating a muffin with all the grace and poise of a rabid wolf tearing at a carcass. “Hey, Vaff,” Gilda said. “Good muffin?” Rainbow asked. “Vewwy.” “Yeah, Derpy’s good at baking them.” Rainbow settled onto the cushioned utopia beside Gilda. “Although I think she took up baking so she could just make muffins whenever she wanted.” Gilda swallowed. “Not a bad idea.” “Anything cool happen while I was gone?” “Only if you count note-taking and getting hit by a train ‘cool’.” Gilda snatched a ball from the floor, bounced it against the opposite wall, and caught it on the return. “Everything’s about magic at the moment, and I can’t do magic, so: bored.” Bounce. “But the eggheads are having fun.” “Hoo, wow. Don’t stay too long around Twilight, then. Say ‘magic’ at her, and she’ll lock up to study it for, like, days. And when she comes back out, I can barely understand anything she’s talking about.” “Pfeh.” Bounce. “I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if I knew a dang thing about magic and could help. I’ve barely done anything this whole trip!” Bounce. “Knock knock,” Starlight said as she leaned in. “Hey, Gilda? Any chance you can seduce a guy?” Gilda froze mid-throw. The ball fell from her claws as she went as still as a statue, except for her tail, constantly flicking. She slowly pivoted her head so she could stare at Starlight. “Ex-ca-yuse me?” she screeched. “Seduce a guy. Specifically, one of the casino guards.” “You’re sounding even more bonkers than ponies usually do, and I didn’t think that was even possible.” “We could use a key to copy to get into the back rooms of the casino again.” Starlight sounded spectacularly patient. “If you distract a guard on his off time, maybe-” “Can’t you have the changeling do it?” Gilda pointed out the door. “You know, the dude from the species known for seducing people?” “Thorax can barely keep himself from running when somepony looks at him funny. I don’t think he knows how to keep somepony distracted that long.” “She’s got a point,” muttered Rainbow, desperate to inject something of her own into this conversation. Although seduction for infiltration purposes was pretty common in stories like this. Daring Do had even done it herself a few times. Rainbow wondered whether, if Gilda wasn’t interested, she could give it a whirl. “Plus,” added Starlight, “we’ll probably need him to win us some more money tomorrow.” “I swear…” Gilda massaged her temples. “Okay, okay, okay, can you please give me a more detailed explanation? I… Mother’s egg, I don’t even know where to start.” “Fine.” Starlight sat down in a chair opposite Gilda. “Bon Bon wants to avoid faking losing her keygem again so we don’t attract any more attention. We have spells that can probably copy the gems the guards use, but we need a gem to start with. One of the guards standing outside, who’s been covering the night shift, has been looking a bit down. We were thinking you could take him to the bar or something after his shift and sweet-talk him while we steal his key and copy it.” “Even though I’m not a pony sort of bird?” Gilda demanded. “Yes, because he’s a griffon.” (Rainbow didn’t revise her speculation that maybe she could do it.) “Why do you think we went to you?” “Okay. Better.” Gilda sounded reluctant, but Rainbow thought she was also a bit interested. “Let me think.” She stood up and walked out of the room, her wings rustling. Rainbow jumped up and trotted after her. “So what’ll you do?” “Dunno,” Gilda grunted. She didn’t look away from her path. “Oh, come on! You gotta-” Gilda spun around and pushed Rainbow away. “I- I’m thinking!” she squawked. “It’s a lot to take in, and I- Look, I don’t know, okay? And you’re not helping. Give me some space.” She shoved off and stalked away, flicking her tail in Rainbow’s face. Scowling and rubbing her nose, Rainbow went back to the room. Starlight was still there; she’d taken up Gilda’s ball and wall-bouncing activity. “So what’s the plan?” Rainbow asked. “If she does it.” “We’re not sure yet,” Starlight said. “We were thinking she takes him to a bar, buys him a few drinks, I steal his key while he’s distracted-” She teleported the ball halfway across the room mid-bounce, then back again. “-we get the magic readings on the key, get it back to him before he leaves. If he doesn’t have the key with him or Gilda doesn’t agree… Well, I don’t know.” “If she doesn’t want to do it, I could.” “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Bounce. After apparently doing a circuit of the house, Gilda returned, clacking her beak and rustling her wings. Starlight glanced at her expectantly, but didn’t say anything. Finally, Gilda said, “Is he cute, at least?” “Derpy thinks so.” “She’s smart. What the heck, I’ll give it a try.” “Great! I’ll go tell Bon Bon, and we can talk about it once she’s done teaching Thorax how to lie.” Gilda blinked. “The changeling is getting lying lessons? I- That’s- Hwehbeh.” “I told you he wasn’t a good changeling.” Once Starlight was gone, Gilda sighed and shook her head. “I gotta say, Dash, this has been one of the weirdest weeks of my life.” Rainbow grinned. “Get used to it. This is how ponies roll.” “Fudge.”