//------------------------------// // XX - An Alternate Form of Payment // Story: Leather-Winged Oddity // by Deyeaz //------------------------------// ~Leather-Winged Oddity~ XX - An Alternate Form Of Payment Have you ever been so frightened of something that your brain simply... shuts down for a second? Like.. you can’t believe something like this is happening? Your limbs go numb, your vision narrows, and the only thing you can hear is your own heart, hammering madly against your ribcage like it wants to escape your chest. That’s what we all felt when we heard that voice. “Who is there?” Fancypants calls down the walkway, his voice reverberating on the stone walls of the tunnel and partially drowned out by the sloshing green soup of sewer water. “Don’t be shy, my little fillies!” The voice says. “It’s just me!” The owner of the voice steps into the light of Ellipsis’s gem. The speaker is a unicorn pony, apparently, with an auburn coat and shadow-bearing gold manic eyes. The top hat on his head of fiery red wild mane reminds me of Slash from Guns N’ Roses. He has a cloak and a pair of burgundy saddlebags upon his back, obscuring his Cutie Mark and tail from view. “Who are you?” Answer the question, man, we ain’t got all evening. “Name’s True Pariah, at your service.” The pony bows low before levitating a tankard he has in his magic grip towards his mouth, glugging down the contents of the tankard greedily. He pulls away and sighs in content a second later. “Ah... green slime fills you somethin’ fierce, y’know?” Shit... Notus wasn’t kidding. This guys is bucking fonkers. “Er... no, lad.” I scratch the back of my head. “Listen... er, True Pariah-” “Please, my main man, gimme a nickname; calling me True Pariah all the time sounds way too formal for this cool cat.” He puts a hoof to his chest in pride. “How about just Pariah?” “Alrighty, then... Pariah, a friend o’ mine sent us here: Notus Eques? Ever heard o’ him?” Pariah pauses for a second. “Er... nope. Can’t say that I have.” “Well, he told me ta see ya ta get a better, workin’ replacement fer this arm o’ mine.” I hold up my left hand and give it a weak little shake. “Ah... I see! Well, you came to the right pony, compadre! Follow me!” Pariah turns around and starts walking back the same way he came. “And bring that light with you! I’m too lazy to provide my own.” “Sonuva...” I mutter. I look back at the three others behind me. “Should we follow?” “We’ve got no other choice,” Kaileena says. “It’s not like we can go back up to the surface anytime soon. Besides, don’t you want that arm of yours?” “Good point.” I gulp and nod. “Let’s go.” We hurriedly follow Pariah down the walkway. The auburn unicorn took a left into one of the tunnels of the sewers. As I look at the walls of the tunnels, I see thick glowing arrows painted in red onto them, pointing in the direction we are following. But when the light from my scythe, the arrows seem to... disappear. Weird... When we exit the tunnel, I see that the same red arrows appear on the floors of the walkway as well, even on the flat metal bridges we occasionally cross. Pariah continues going through the labyrinth of walkways and tunnels, with us trailing him. It’s like this for about two or three minutes, and my patience has never been run thinner. “Are we there yet?” Fleur complains. “We’ll get there when we get there!” Pariah hollers, his voice bouncing off the walls. “Ah... here we are!” What we walk into... causes us to go slack-jawed. The room we have just entered is about as large as a common room, and is so tall that I can’t see the ceiling. Torches line up a wide metal walkway down to a massive circular platform about twenty-five meters in diameter in the middle of the room, with water surrounding the platform much like a moat would surround a castle. Four tunnels on the wall of the room create sloshing waterfalls of actual blue water into the pond below. On the borders of the platform are large poles, but they aren’t tipped with fire to create the glow they let off. Instead, there are golden spheres on each pole, glowing brightly as the sun. The spheres somewhat remind me of the glowstones from Minecraft. In the center of the large platform is a rather small taupe tent, with a fire pit and a long rusty ladder in front of the tent, the ladder leading up to a balcony that appears to lead to the surface world, at least... I think it does. “C’est magnifique...” I hear Fancypants murmur. “Welcome to my humble abode, fillies and gentlecolts!” Pariah whoops as we all head down the walkway. “Y’all can kick it here for a while until I finish the new limb.” “Whoa...” I’m absolutely awestruck by the sight. “How is the water so pure here, when it was disgusting and impure back in the tunnels?” asks Kaileena, curiosity probably pumping through her veins right now. Let’s just hope it doesn’t kill her! Brain, stop. Now. Pfft... spoilsport. “I simply put a few magical filters in the tunnels over there.” Pariah points his hoof at the tunnels on the walls that are still gushing clean water. “To keep it from overflowin’, there’s a tunnel that’s level with the platform: it helps regulate the water system in the city.” “So, Canterlot’s dirty sewage gets pure again through here, and is drinking water again?” Fleur asks in slight disgust. “Er, in a sense.” Pariah enters the tent and calls, “‘Ey! Osiris! Mercutio! We got company!” We walked inside the tent, and our jaws drop. The interior reminds me so much of Echo’s Shagwagon... but so much bigger. The inside is about half the size of a soccer stadium, the floor riddled with different metals and gems. The smell of burning incense candles reaches my nostrils, which gladly welcome the new smell and dispose of the smell of sewage. A large square worktable is placed in the center of the monolithic tent, the surface also littered with blueprints and materials. Resting in beanbag chairs are two indiscernible shapes. But when I get closer, the two shapes are depicted to be a griffin and a Diamond Dog. The griffin has a dusky tan lion body, with a white feathery torso and head, and large wings folded on his side. There is an icy-blue pattern on his chest that looks like a thin crescent moon, the open end facing up. The feathers on his head that would make up his proverbial hair is slicked back, with four feathers, tipped icy-blue as well, jutting out slightly on the back of his head. The feathers around his eyes, also the same color as his chest sigil and feather tips, are styled like Gilda’s, yet there is only one prong point away from his emerald eyes rather than three. He has a black, shiny composite bow on his side, but no quiver of arrows. The bow has two white glowing stones, though. Perhaps it has magic...? The Diamond Dog is one of the large bulky ones with , like that one D-Dog in that episode when Rarity had been captured by them: Season 1, Episode 19: “A Dog and Pony Show”. He has all-yellow eyes with black dagger-like pupils. He wears a sleeveless gray hoodie over his dusty-blue fur. He has long lanky arms that are rippling with muscles. Behind his beanbag chair is a massive steel warhammer, the square ends decorated with sharp spikes. “That there’s Osiris.” Pariah points at the griffin, who waves. “And that’s Mercutio.” The hoof points to the Diamond Dog, who nods and smiles before facing forward. The two were playing with a pack of cards, and judging by the look of annoyance on Mercutio’s face, Osiris is handing his fluffy canine ass to him. “How’re the sales, boss?” With a deep voice that would rival the manliest black guy, Osiris asks Pariah that question, throwing down another card onto a small cardboard box that served as their game table. Mercutio growls in frustration, before throwing down another card. "Yeah." Mercutio's voice was also deep, but gravelly and rough, like he had been gargling thumbtacks and marbles. "Anything good?" “Meh, not too bad, honestly.” Pariah stops at the worktable, examining the blueprints and whatnot that litters its surface. He does this for about ten seconds before he turns around. “I can help you with your whole problem, er...” He pauses for a second. “I’m sorry, I’ve never gotten your names.” “I’m Damien,” I start, “th’ pink-maned unicorn is Fleur De Lis, th’ blue-maned unicorn is Fancypants, an’ th’ tall cat-like creature is a Bast, named Kaileena.” “Damien, eh?” Pariah chuckles a bit before continuing: “I can lend ya a hoof in your whole prosthetic situation. And it won’t cost you a Bit!” I sigh in relief: I’m already dirt-poor, and I don’t think either Fancypants or Fleur should pay for it: they've done enough. “However... it’ll have to cost ya something else,” Pariah finishes. “So... an alternate form o’ payment?” I inquire. “Correct.” Pariah begins pacing back and forth as he launches into our “mission”. “That tunnel that regulates all the water? Well, there are other tunnels that link to that one, like some enormous labyrinth. Inside this labyrinth is a rare stone. So rare, that the Princesses would do anything to get it if they heard about it! The stone is called an ‘Atlamillia.’” “Atlamillia?” Kaileena questioned. ‘Uh-oh! Dark Cloud series reference!’ Brain, enough! “Yes. Atlamillias are incredibly powerful minerals, capable of actually bending the very fabric of time and space itself. There have been tons of rumors amongst the underground about a huge suppository of these stones existing here, in that underground water channel. If harnessed right, you could travel to any time and any place in the past and the future at will!” “What if this... ‘Atlamillia’... fell into the wrong hooves?” Fancypants inquires. “If that happens...” Pariah begins dramatically. “If that happens...?” Fleur De Lis says punctually. “Just pretend it won’t happen, will ya?” “What?!” The four of us blurt out. “Hang on... why d’ya want this ‘Atlamillia’ in th’ first place?” I ask. Pariah ‘grabs’ me by my shoulders and shakes me furiously. “So that I can be filthy bucking rich, of course!” He screams crazily. “Point taken,” I say dizzily. I shake my head of the dizziness. “So ya want us ta go down there an’ get it fer ya?” “Yep!” Pariah answers before chugging more of his green slime. “Alrighty, then... just gimme a moment ta think.” “Sure, sure. Take as much time as you need.” “Thanks.” I sit down and mull it over. On one hand, it seems like a rather good idea, especially if Pariah might hike up the price while we’re gone, and since neither Fleur nor Fancypants have an infinite amount of Bits, this would do well. So: Step 1: Go in the tunnel. Step 2: Find Atlamillia. Step 3: Get out. Step 4: Disregard women, acquire new arm. Step 5: ??? Step 6: Profit. Sounds nice and easy, right? Wrong. I must also take the downfalls of this mission into consideration. There are probably all sorts of weird creatures scattered throughout the underground water channel. I can’t really use my scythe as well as before, and while I understand Kaileena is a good fighter, I don’t want her to overexert herself fighting all of the monsters for us. Hell, I’m not sure if either Fancypants or Fleur are skilled in fighting, or have even been in a scuffle. Damn... the factors are all balanced out, the pros clashing hideously with the cons until the two have reached a hard-to-shatter stalemate. “I don’t know...” I murmur, rubbing my left arm with my right hand in worry. “It sounds like a pretty risky thing.” “Well, that’s fine,” Pariah says, his mood darkening slightly. “So you just wanna pay for this with your own money?” “Yes, please,” Fancypants says, a smattering of nervousness in his voice. Sounds like he doesn’t wanna go into the underground water channel, either. “7500 Bits, then.” The effect is instantaneous. Fleur and Fancypants both go slack-jawed at the astromonical price; Kaileena, who was distracted by a firefly lamp, goes wide-eyed and turns her head so quickly that she almost gets whiplash; Osiris and Mercutio snicker like idiots as I, in a fit of curiosity, sample some of the green slime that Pariah takes joy in, but spit it out in a shower of emerald goop. And it wasn’t just the news that made me do it. “Ergh, that’s fuckin’ nasty, lad!” I complain. No, really: that thing tastes like someone rubbed a moldy pizza and rotting meat on their sweaty nuts, then liquidated it with chunky expired milk. ...Too much? I put the mug down and start rubbing my tongue with my right hand to rid it of the horrendous aftertaste; the left one would probably give me a splinter. “Really?” Pariah asks as he chugs his slime like it was the nectar of the gods. “Huh... guess it ain’t for everypony.” “Actually, Pariah...” I begin, before stopping to take a breath and this last thing through. Accept offer, and claim great treasure at the cost of coming across danger; decline offer, and have to work for the money, even though we’re wanted by the Royal Guard. Decisions, decisions... Finally, after so much thinking and planning, I say three words that seal the deal. “I’ll do it.”