I've been out here for a solid week now and to be honest it hasn't been without complication. Things haven't been all bad. Water wasn't a problem once I found one of the town wells. I've still got my swiss army knife and lighter and I even managed to make a sheet tent. Unfortunately, though, my relationship with the locals hasn't exactly been the best. I'm pretty sure they think I'm a monster now. I'll admit that we started off on the wrong foot with me getting a bit worked up, escaping containment, causing a stampede, and trying to steal a cucumber and my last few days of hiding in the woods and sneaking around haven't done myself any favors. Last night they even sent a few ponies into the woods with magic flashlights to see where I was hiding so making more campfires will be harder. At first I thought I would need some time alone to think things through and maybe even study the ponies. Now I don't know if I can go back to the town, well, ever. That's why, if all goes well, I'm not going to.
The town is almost all ponies but I know other things exist. There's that lizard from the day before and I think I even saw a minotaur once so if this is anything like most fantasy worlds there's probably a good deal of variation and the place to see the most of that variation is the big city. From the right angle I can see a giant shining city on a mountain so that seems like the best place for me to figure things out and, if I learn the language, maybe even blend in. Unfortunately it's far enough away to be at least a few day's journey. Possibly a lot more with how small some of those buildings look. That means I need to be properly prepared if I want to make it and to get properly prepared I'll need proper tools. That leads us to our first big plan. Operation Hardware Store.
The pony hardware store itself is pretty easy to find. It's not too far from the edge of town and has a large wordless sign that's either meant to look traditional or a sign of illiteracy. The problem is getting in, getting what I need, and getting out without being noticed. If they see their local monster literally breaking into a shop they'll likely want to get rid of me a lot quicker and the stampede on my first day shows a pretty strong herd mentality. I'd be pretty much screwed. So far my best plan is to try and pick the lock then grab anything with a large enough inventory size for them to not notice immediately. For that, though, I need a lockpick and for that I need metal.
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This stage of the process may be more difficult than I thought. You might think it's easy to find a decent pick or at least something to shape into one, especially when you already have a torque wrench in the form of your swiss army knife's screwdriver. This is because you live in a modern human house and can show your face outside. I, however, do not have that luxury. My first thought was a paperclip but when's the last time you saw a paperclip just lying around? For that to be a good option I'd need to find a pony office and I don't want to plan another robbery just to support this one. I'll leave the schemes within schemes for more important things. My next thought was that maybe some kind of hairclip or pin would have a wire I could use but after about two long and painful hours spent watching the ponies walk by from under a bush I started realizing that because they, by their very nature, stick to ponies pretty well I'd have to run up and take one and while I could totally do that it's, again, another spike in infamy I'm not willing to take. While I was watching I also realized a more feasible option and it's not one I'm looking forwards to. In my observations, both this one and over the previous week I kept seeing a bright pink horse who seemed worried about something, always popping up and asking random ponies something like <Have you seen the new pony in town?>, and she seems to work at a literal gingerbread bakery. A gingerbread bakery run by a family. A family with a baby who's diapers use safety pins and are usually thrown out whole. This isn't going to be fun.
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Alright. I got the safety pin. I... don't want to think about it beyond that. At least there's a river near town to wash my hands off in. You'd think the worst part would be the diaper itself but a bakery on this scale has a decent amount of waste and there were at least a few inches of rotting pastry to dig through before I got to it which is just... ugh. At least the patrol looked for me in the woods instead of in the dumpster behind the bakery itself and it wasn't too hard to bend the tip with my swiss army knife and the rock. From there it was just a matter of opening the lock. It only had four cylinders and had some very low tolerances so the lock wasn't an obstacle, even for someone like me who wasn't much of an experienced picker, so now I've got supplies for my escape and future survival. I couldn't take too much without making much of a racket but I've now got a small hatchet, a hand drill, a bow saw, a hammer, and various fasteners. I don't think they noticed either so worst comes to worst I can always come back and take more. For my escape itself I'd like something to help me carry the tools and supplies. Maybe a backpack or even small sled depending on how hard they look for me. Something to think about going forward.