Its time like this that I really miss shoes, and pants, and clothing in general, seriously would it have killed this gut to stop and give me something to cover up, I was cold and way to many mare were taking to staring at my crotch for my liking, and as for the shoes business, well walking halfway across a city and then all the way back in bare feet is very painful for said feet. It became even more painful when we stopped walking on the paved roads of the city and instead trundled along on a gravel road/path, my feet were well and truly bleeding at this point and I swear I had some bits of gravel stuck in my feet. But I kept walking since every time I tried to stop or slow down Mr Star Shine would juts keep pulling, so it was either this or get dragged on my face along this seemingly endless gravel road, so I kept walking, although my legs were tired enough that it seemed I might very well just fall over anyway.
Since Shine had 'acquired' me he had set a brisk pace through the city and then just kept walking, he didn't talk to me although he did talk to himself a lot, although it was in such a low voice that I could hardly hear him over the noise in the city, and at the moment I was too focused on the pain in my feet to even try and listen. I did get bits and pieces earlier though, and they worried me, a lot of his talk was rambling about the outrage of this city, how demeaning this was, how much he needed to get back to hi research, some of the typical elitist crap, but he often spoke about experiments too, experiments he had done, the results of this experiment, and, most worryingly, the experiments he was going to do. I sincerely hoped he wouldn't try any experiments on me but knowing my luck so far in this world, it was probably going to happen.
So we had been walking for, I dunno, a few hours now? When Star Shine finally turned off the gravely path to a much less used road covered in leaves and weeds poking up as well as the numerous cursed rocks. Curious and wanting to look at something other than my own bleeding feet I turned my gaze up to look straight ahead, and then a bit further up when all I saw were trees. Then I saw it, poking through the tree tops was what looked like the top of a large dull grey tower, with a very large, silver, five pointed star symbol on it, if this wasn't his home then I was a dancing walrus, odd choice of words, I know.
As we continued along the path the tower top was hidden in the trees again but when I looked down again I saw a large gate, with the same star symbol adorned on it, Tice as tall as me and almost the same length as a train carriage. As we neared the gate I took a look at the surroundings, the gate was attached to a reasonably slightly higher wall, coloured the same silvery grey as the tower, but covered in so much moss and vines that you could hardly see the original colour under all the green. Through the gate I could see a long, paved path, thank God, with greenery running alongside it and a handful of trees interspacing the grass.
At the end of the path was what I assumed to be the bottom of the tower, although I couldn't see the whole base due to the wall, it was the same colour as the top and had lots of Statues along it and carvings, most of them being the same 5 point Star, although some of them had a comet trail following them. The doors to the tower were extremely large, reminding me more of a gate than a door, and it too had those five pointed stars all over it, overkill much?
When we got near the gate they slowly opened by themselves as Shine strode confidently into the courtyard of his 'home,' the inside of the courtyard was pretty much what I imagined it to be, mostly grass with some bushes and an odd few trees. The Towers overall shape was an incredibly thick base, I'd estimate it to be around 40 metres, that tinned out as it rose up till about a third of the way up it reached its thinnest point at around half the width of the base, it then rose up at that same width before widening out a bit at the very top, speaking of which it was HUGE! This thing had to be around 150m tall! How much space did this guy need? All in all the whole place reminded me a lot of Isenguard, you know, before Sauroman turned it into an orc breeding pit, and of course dark silver instead of black.
Another thing to note was how empty the place was, at least the courtyard, I couldn't see any other humans or ponies at all, I was thinking a place this big would at least have a gardener, or maybe garden maintains itself magically, who knows? When we got inside we finally stopped and I just flopped on the cold hard ground. As I lay there with my aching legs and feet crying out in relief Star Shine seemed to be talking to himself for a bit about something as he attached my chain to the wall and walked off, musing to himself, not even glancing at me.
After a while of enjoying the sweet relief I took a moment to look around, the entrance of this tower certainly didn't disappoint from the outside, it was massive, all marble white and in a mostly square shape, it had two pairs of stairs leading up to a higher balcony ledge thing, the stairs with lush red carpets on them, around the room were lavishly decorated oaken door, two doors on each side on the bottom floor and three at the end of the 'balcony,' and one more below the 'balcony.' The walls were decorated in artwork and portraits of ponies who were, presumably previous owner of this tower, there were no windows in this room but there was plenty of light from numerous glowing orbs hanging from the walls, and a massive chandelier made of presumably glass.
I got up to look around before burning pain in my feet reminded me that I got more than aching legs from my long walk, so I slowly sat my back up against the wall before turning my leg so I could see the bottom of my foot, I've always been a very flexible person. The sight alone caused me to wince, my foot was covered in scratched and deep cuts, many of the cuts had small pebbles in them too, holding the cuts open too the cruel world. I didn't know much about health, but I did know that leaving those pebbles in my foot was just asking for an infection, and with what little I had seen from my new master, what with him pretty much causing this wound, I figured I'd have to pull them out myself. Now understand I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time, because if I was I wouldn't have gone straight to trying with my fingers.
<--------<Star Shine>-------->
Star Shine continued to mutter to himself as he entered the library of the Star tower, such unimaginative names his ancestors had come up with, and trotted over to a small statue sitting on a little table in the middle of the vast library. The statue was made of gold with small gems dotting its frame, mostly on the joints, the shape of the statue was that of a large lizard, but with more hand like front paws. Star Shine stopped in front of the table and turned his gaze up to the statue, "bring me every book on humans we have." The Statue did nothing for a moment before scurrying off towards one of the identical towering bookcases that lined the walls of the library. Shine watched the golden lizard grab seemingly random books from the shelves before bringing them back to the table and then scurrying off to grab some more. Shine realised that perhaps he had been a bit too broad and was about to rectify his command when a cry of pain from the entrance hall interrupted him.
Star Shine rushed back to the entrance hall to find the human holding its foot with one had while using the other had to seemingly dig into it foot, screaming in pain as it did so. He quickly grabbed the humans foot in his magic "STOP IT YOU IDIOT! Can't leave you alone for two second before you go about injuring yourself." Still holding the foot in his magic and ignoring the humans glare Shine inspected the humans foot, it was covered in cuts and scrapes and many of those cuts had bits of gravel in them, Shine thought about for a moment before facehooving, "of course human feet are weaker than hooves, now I'll have clean this up before it get infected." Shine glared at the human for a second before saying, very slowly "stay here and don't do anything," then he turned around and headed for the kitchen.
"Stupid humans being so fragile and stupid." Shine fished through the emergency medical supply box fishing out a bottle of disinfectant before returning to the entrance hall, "again, really?" The human was once again picking at its foot with its fingers before Shine yanked it away again a bit more forcefully than before, "now hold still." He held the foot up to get a good view at it ignoring the yelp of surprise from the human as it was dragged forwards, then magically grasped every single pebble in his magic and yanking the out of the humans foot. The human screeched out in pain but Star Shine didn't wait, quickly pouring the disinfectant on a piece of cotton he began dabbing it all over the humans foot eliciting more hisses of pain from the human. To finish it off Shine cast a quick and basic healing spell which caused the skin to grow over an seal all the cuts, it wouldn't remove the injury or pain but it would stop any infections, he then performed the same procedure on the humans other foot, again ignoring the humans cries of pain before dropping that foot as well.
"There, now be quiet and stop making and idiot of yourself," although he new it fell on deaf ears, the human might have gotten some of that sentence but the majority was out of its understanding. He stepped back to look at the human, before his face contorted in disgust, this creature was ugly, no wonder those Manehattinites dressed their humans up, if this was what was underneath all that clothing, he wouldn't have this thing walking around his house like that, fortunately Shine had just the thing. "Wait, here," not waiting to see if that thing even could acknowledge the command, Star Shine headed to the storage room.
There really wasn't much else to this storage room aside from storage, it was little more than a bunch of shelves lining the walls with multiple boxes and odd shapes over them. Shine made his way to the end of the storage room, which took a considerable amount of time, before pulling out one of the many nearly identical boxes, blowing the large layer of dust off the top before opening to make sure it was the right one, after nodding to himself in approval Shine headed back with the box in his magical grasp.
<-----------<Jacob>----------->
"Stupid fucking unicorn with fucking stupid magic," after Mr Shine had very painfully healed my foot and told me to stay put like a person would do to a dog, I had decided to test my newly repaired feet to pass the time, and despite looking healed when I tried to stand up it only felt slightly better, like someone had just covered my cuts in bandages, which meant it still hurt like a bitch. Still, at least I shouldn't get an infection, I'm not sure what level of medical expertise they have but with the way my new master had treated me so far, I wouldn't be surprised if he just amputated my limb if it got infected.
Eventually Star Shine came back holding a large cardboard box with his magic before dropping it rather loudly right in front of me, he opened the box before taking out some CLOTHES! Yes finally, even though they looked more like rags they were still clothes and that was a fucking relief to finally have something to cover up in, the clothes/rags were a dull brown in colour and there were two of them, a kind of sleeveless shirt and a pair of shorts, also the shirt had a silver star on the front and back of it. He also pulled out a silver collar with a bunch of blue gems attached to it, and that was it, bit of a big box for just some rags and a collar.
Then I felt myself being lifted up by his magic as he detached my collar and shoved my clothes/rags on, before clipping the new collar on, he put me down on my feet where I quickly dropped to my arse thanks to the pain in my feet. Sitting down I fingered the collar a bit noting a disturbing lack of a clasp despite seeing it get opened up, when Star Shine pulled something else out of the box, a little necklace with a similar blue gem on it to the ones on my collar, which he slipped around his neck.
Shine began what looked like tinkering with the necklace using his magic, holding up where he could see it and staring at it for a second, I briefly contemplated using this moment to try and attack him but quickly shoved it out of my mind, he was too far away for me to close without him noticing it and he could still very easily just grapple me with his magic. Of course me not attacking him didn't stop him from hurting me anyway, the gem on the necklace glowed red for a bit before I felt a burning pain in my head, and I curled up in pain against the wall clutching my head when just as quickly as it came, the pain just vanished. "Good, that works, now, get up and follow me or else that little burst will be the least of your worries."
I scrambled up at this command choosing to ignore the pain from me feet in favour of having no pain in my head, and stood to attention facing him, while I noticed that the gem on his necklace had gone back to blue again. Shine seemed surprised at my response before shaking his head slightly and then nodding more strongly, then his gem glowed yellow and he turned around to the door underneath the balcony.
I was quick to follow him as we passed through into a long hallway with more portrait's lining the walls, seriously how many of these paintings were even made? So we continued along this hallway all the way to the end where there was another door which led into a square shaped deep room with stairs along the wall leading into a near impenetrable darkness, ok that just screamed bad news. But this didn't phase Shine as he walked down the stairs with me stuck up at the top, for a moment that is.
As soon as Shine got about five metres away I felt a strong, irresistible tugging sensation around my neck dragging me forward into the dark. I desperately grabbed at the railing as I was dragged down but to no avail, so I was forced to just keep moving my legs to avoid falling face forwards down a stairway, which is an experience I wasn't very interested in trying out. I looked down and felt around my neck to try and get a clue as to what this irresistible force was coming from, but my hands just felt the collar with nothing attached and all I could see was a yellow glow, wait what?
As I wondered what other surprises this magic collar would have for me we eventually came to a stop after spiralling downwards two full turns we came to a large metal door. It had some writing on it but I couldn't make it out in the dark but that didn't bother Star Shine so either ponies had super night vision, which I wouldn't discount with those abnormally large eyes, or, and more likely, he had come to this room with a reasonable amount of regularity, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. So he shoved open the door which swung open without a sound, further supporting the regularity argument, and led into a completely dark room with no light coming from it whatsoever, again this didn't phase Star Shine as he trotted in and dragged his ever more reluctant human with him.
With the tiny amount of light from the stairway I could make out a dull grey floor and, wait, why is it getting darker. The door slammed shut behind us as I spun around and nearly wet myself, before a slight silver glow came from behind me, I spun around again just in time to be blinded, again.
So after rubbing the light out of my eyes for the second time today, a recurring pattern I was beginning to notice, I threw a glance around the room and my jaw dropped, the walls, floor and ceiling were all the same dull grey but that was just about the only dull thing about this room. First off, it was massive, much bigger than the entrance hall and I couldn't see the whole thing for all the random items in the way, and lets talk about those random things shall we, there were metal shelves lined with weird gizmos and random junk, and everywhere else there where wither large weird gizmos or the strange dummies, they looked a lot like those training dummies from video games, except they were mostly pony and griffon shaped, although I did see a few humans and strange bull/human dummies too, also most of them where broken, scarred or damaged in one way or another. There were also numerous scorch and scratch marks along the right wall, and there were some of the dummies set up in what looked like firing ranges, although the weapons looked mostly like strange spears or bows, in fact, looking around most of the weird gizmos looked like weapons or armour of one form or another, worrying.
While I was staring at what looked ever more worryingly like a weapons development lab, albeit a very ancient and magical one, Shine had led me of to the wall on the left side of the room, I on this side there seemed to be more desks and less finished gizmos/weapons along with some other stuff, including a weird long, wide opened tube attached to the wall with a whole slew of wires and what looked like a fancies up dentists examiner thing, you know with all the little microscopes and stuff attached, only this looked less like microscopes and more like sci-fi lasers with large compartment slots, oh and the whole thing was all gold, this seemed to be our destination. Sight stopped right next to the machine before looking at me and staying "get in."
"Yeah, no thank you sir," was what I wanted to say, instead I settled for looking at it warily and taking a small step back, Shine just sighed at this and muttered something to himself before picking me up with his magic and dumping me in the tube and then closing the dam lid.
Fortunately the lid was mostly glass with a golden rim so I had light, so my pounding against it was slightly less desperate, although there was only a small blue glass hole in front of my face, a bit of a design flaw. Then I found myself pulled up against the lid, my face squeezed awkwardly to the side and putting an abrupt halt to my pounding while also managing to cover up most of my mouth and nose making it very hard to breath. Fortunately this only lasted a moment and I fell back down onto the lower half of the tube, seems like someone forgot to turn the dam collar off.
As I lay there nursing my bruised face I suddenly heard a kind of whirring sound from through the tube, before the little blue circle began to glow. I started pounding against the tube lid again with even more desperation, increasing even further when I heard a click from above the tube and the circle began glowing even more fiercely. Soon enough I was shouting out in panic, no words though since I still, even now, was unable to talk, and the glow grew even more and more, I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to shield them but the glow just seemed to go straight through my eyelids, then there was a blinding flash of blue light and my world became pain