• Published 24th Jan 2014
  • 2,241 Views, 31 Comments

Gilded Vengeance - DenyTheWitch



Jacob finds himself in a new hostile world filled with animalistic humans, and talking midget horses. Sold, branded and subject to painful experiments, Jacob will set out on a quest to find a solution for the humans of Equus

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Chapter 6

"GET UP!" Those were the words that I was woken up to today, and the fact that it was accompanied by a slight searing in my head, got me up right and quick. I blinked the drowsiness out of my eyes as I struggled to remain upright despite my body's attempt to topple me, likely in protest to the rapid awakening, watching as the room came into focus to see Star Shine standing there tapping his hoof against the floor. "What's wrong with you? You had an early night last night and yet its six o'clock and you still haven't started on your jobs, now get to it!" Sure, if by early night you mean I went to sleep at eleven instead of twelve o'clock then sure, early night, arse.

Then my collar glowed yellow and I was once again dragged forwards out the door and stumbled into the much brighter light of the main hall. Shine trotted off towards his laboratory again with his snout held high, "we're killing him slowly when we get out."
"Oh absolutely." Sadly continued thoughts of Shines slow and painful death had to put to the side as I got back to my chores, this time "hopefully for the last time." I went into the kitchen rather slowly before checking off the checklist on our food stocks, things were looking fine so far, we were short on many long term necessities, but the restock should be arriving soon, perfect.

With the food all checked out I slowly walked back into the hallway, checking to make sure that Shine was gone, before quickly stumbling into my room. Closing the door behind me I walked over to one of the many box covered shelves at the far end of the room, before pulling out one specific box and throwing a quick glance inside, everything seems in order here.

See, today was the day I was making my escape, well tonight is more accurate, but I was getting out of here soon, and unlike my previous escape attempts, I was sure this was going to work. I'd been making my preparations for this for some time now (a few months probably), ever since that 'party' where Shine had shown off his many weapons to all those guests, it had given me an idea and now that I had done the research and actual work, I had a confidence rate 73% that it would work. And what's more I had done some work into what would happen after my escape, I had checked the maps, read the guides and gathered my gear, all at night mind you, and I had a plan of where to hide, and what I'd do after fleeing. Of course I had to escape before any of that could happen.

Last night I had made my final preparations, I'd only gotten to sleep at about one thirty last night, but now I had everything ready to go for my big escape. I had my food, I had the survival gear, the maps and now I just had to wait. I got up again after placing the box back in position and went back out to continue the chores, no need to make Star Shine suspicious.

<-------------------------------->

It was around midday when the mailmare finally arrived, I'd spent the time in between essentially stalling, checking lists over and over again, carrying boxes around and basically doing my best to look busy, not that Shine had come up but I couldn't take any chances, I was going all out for this and I needed it to work. I opened the front gate to see Lightwing standing there once again, probably fantasising having a time with me.

I'd spent a lot of my nights reading books in the library and apparently bestiality was OK with ponies, especially with humans, have to say that was a rather unsettling fact to learn. Humans had other uses in pony society, slaves for farming, gladiators for fighting arenas, and some actually used them as beasts of war, many ponies also kept humans as pets, especially the mares, "can't imagine what that was for," (that was sarcasm by the way). I gave her the bag of bits before getting to work loading up the boxes into the courtyard, the job had gotten much easier lately, after all I had been carrying heavy items with much regularity, and I'd also been working out a bit in my small amount of spare time and at the night, needed to be ready after all, so I'd gotten a much stronger build than what I used to have, probably why Lightwing's eyes were traveling higher nowadays, still weird.

"Its good to see you're getting better, you looked so scrawny when I first saw you, and you still aren't wearing those clothes Shine had bought for you." The fact that Shine takes no interest anymore in these deliveries had allowed me to order some of the items I felt I would end up needing but couldn't get though the tower itself, things like steel and boots. Fortunately Lightwing's stupidity had worked out in my favour, ok perhaps that was a bit harsh, but the point remains, she hadn't questioned the ordered goods purpose, and that meant I hadn't had to come up with some excuse which probably would have ended with another burning.

I finished carrying all the boxes into the courtyard, while Lightwing just shook her head, "no idea why Shine would need twelve boxes of the All You Need Easy Packed Traveling Kit," yeah, unimaginative, isn't it, "after all he hardly strikes me as the traveling type, but, not my jobs to be confused, I do enough of that at home, ha."
"Yeah, I'll bet you do." I think my crazy chuckled at that.
"So anyway, nice to see you again your always such a good listener, well, seeya!" And with that little plate of stupid air headedness, she finally left and I was free to check the crates for all the goodies, lets see, yep those traveling packs (no I'm not gonna say the whole name), blanket and of course, all the other random goods I needed to stock up on. Smiling to myself I lugged the boxes back inside and began unloading, this was going to be a night to remember.

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After Shine had went to bed I stayed up and waited for about two hours, had to make sure he was asleep, but those were the two longest hours of my life. Eventually two hours had passed, (or at least I think it had been two hours, hard to tell exactly without a watch) and I set my plan in motion. I went to the back shelf and pulled out my projects. Two golden gauntlets came out of the box, I had been working on these things for months now, it turns out gold isn't as valuable here as it is on earth, so it was easy to swipe a bit of it for my own purposes. That was strange in itself as, apparently, gold is a strong, 'conductor' if you will for magic, hence the reason Shine's many weapons being made of gold. The gauntlets weren't made entirely of gold though, in fact the gold was mostly just the outer coating, the inside was mostly plain steel, it would probably reduce their efficiency but I had to make sure Shine didn't notice that this stuff was missing.

The gauntlets were layered items, with nothing covering the fingers and came to halfway between my wrists and forearms when I put them on, they each also had a small perfectly spherical imprint of silver in them. They also had a small switch on the top part of the 'wrist' of the gauntlets, which would flick on some silver lids over the empty sockets, it relied on very simple mechanics, basic flicking the switch would move the lid, they also had another socket, these ones with their own lids which would have to be opened manually, at a point where the gauntlet would come up to halfway up my forearms.

Also in the box I had stored many other items, including a map, a human backpack (well actually it was a small minotaur backpack but what the heck, it looked and functioned the same), and a large brown duster jacket, a leather belt and a pair of big leather boots, those had been hard to order. I had to pretend Star Shine had wanted to dress me up, and making sure Shine himself never found out had been a trick involving some false bumbling at key moments and suffering severe amounts of pain. Don't ask what the leather came from, I ordered this stuff from the Griffons and since they have a history of using humans like cattle (incidentally local cattle are actually sapient beings here), I'm not sure I want to know.

Now it was time to get to work, I firstly slipped on the gauntlets, which, while they were heavy, where not quite as heavy as one would expect given that they were half a centimetre thick at their thinnest, strapped on the belt, and slipped the duster on over my shirt and pants. Then I set out towards the lab.

Shine had never actually put any skllburners around the entrance to the lab, so I had been able to wander in whenever I wanted, its where I had the equipment to make my projects, I do wonder why Shine had never bothered with the lab, perhaps he had thought I was too stupid? "Understandable, given you never even TRIED to use these weapons in the lab."
"Hey, shut up, you never suggested us using them either."

So I got down into the lab, turned on the automatic lights, they were movement sensitive I think, and I quickly headed towards the lances and shields. I got two pairs of lances and shields, and carried them over to the workbench, and a quietly as possible, I may have multiple stories and metal doors of freaking tower between me and him, but I didn't want to take any chances. So I got to the workbench, and began to pull apart the shields.

The first things I wanted were the magic cancelling gems, I'd figured out how they worked through long and boring studies in the library, and here was the jig. The orbs were designed to pull away all local magic around them, but since that would mess with the lances Shine had wanted to link them with, he had placed them in silver sockets, now I don't know by but apparently, silver is a kind of magic dampener around here, to by placing the orbs in the silver sockets, they would only target active magic, they would not effect a certain 'frequency' of magic nor would they take out non active, passive magic, that is spells sort of encoded within an object for an effect, like my collar, speaking of which.

The first thing I did with these orbs was bring them up to my neck, and just the orbs, I watched with glee as the orbs glowed brightly for a second, while the constant blue aurora from my collar dimmed, without the magic dampening effects of the guntlets, these gems would just drain any magic around them, active or not. Giddily I placed the orbs into the sockets of my gauntlets, before picking up a knife, sticking it between the collar and my neck, and began sawing. In hindsight not the best idea, but I was excited and wasn't thinking very straight. It took a long while, but finally the knife came out, with me getting only a few cuts on my neck and jaw. I held the broken collar in front of me staring at the dull gems, the pain in my neck forgotten, I was free, finally free.

I quickly shook my head clear, not quite free yet, still had to deal with Star Shine, "slowly and painfully," I gave myself a savage grin, before getting to work on the handguns, flicking a silver lid over my gauntlets to make sure there would be no interference with the magic in the lance gems. The orbs from the lances I placed in the sockets further up my gauntlets, and then completely closed their lids, these were just there to store the magic from the magic drainers for later experiments, I also took a few focuser gems and some more of the energy storage gems and stuffed all that into my bag. I also took a large number of scorcher orbs form the lab, and with everything set, it was time for some long awaited payback

I headed back up to the main hallway, then passed through the doorway into the stairwell for the upper levels, flicking open the lids on the gauntlets to drain some magic from the Skullburner orbs as they activated to the presence of me, but with no collar to activate, the magic form the crystals was simply drained into my gauntlets. Then I headed my way up the stairs to find Star Shines room, that part was rather long and boring, I think I ended up finding him on the eighth floor.

I quietly opened the door to yet another room and found Star Shine, all tucked up and asleep, feeling completely safe, well that wouldn't do, I wanted him to know this was coming. I walked over to one of the lamps, its active magic quickly draining into my gauntlets, and dropped it on the ground with a loud crash. Shine burst up from the bed ears swivelling on his already quickly moving head, his horn charged up with some sort of spell, and the necklace dangling form his neck, it took him about three seconds before he saw me, his eyes narrowing and face twisting into a scowl as I just gave a carefree smile, the kind that shows teeth and waved at him, "what are you..."

I didn't let him finish before I rushed at him, his eyes suddenly widening as he realised just what I was doing here, he let out a burst of magic, but it just dissipated a few feet from me, I think his eyes widened even more at that, before I tackled him. Now one thing about the local humans that I'd read is that they were extremely fierce fighters, more so than most local species, considering I had yet to fight another human here I wasn't quite sure just how strong that was, but what I had assumed from it was that ponies at least, were rather weak. This assumption proved correct as I grappled his head with one had, him putting all his weight into trying to break free while I used my other had to drive my metal covered fist into his face in rapid succession, he tried to cats some spells of some kind but the short little auras from his horn would always dissipate almost immediately after it started. Eventually I started smashing his head into anything nearby, watching with glee as his face became more and more wrecked and bloody with each blow, but it seems I got a bit carried away as I hurled him into the desk where the lamp had been.

I strode forwards confidently as he wearily got back up before his horn began to shine again, ha, good luck, haven't you figured out I cant be blasted with your cheap magic tricks. Then I noticed just about every small object that wasn't nailed down, including the pieces of the desk and broken lamp, all covered in a similar aura, before an entire room worth of shrapnel was hurled at me. I dived out of the room, fortunately not hitting any walls, as the lethal hail of bedroom scrap smashed into the wall I had been standing in front of before. "Come back here you ungrateful human scum!"

Ungrateful, what did I have to grateful about, regardless I now had a problem since Shine could just throw anything he wanted at me if I tried to enter the room, fortunately I had come prepared. Closing the lids on my gauntlets, I pulled out one of the Scorcher orbs, primed it, and hurled it into the room, "what?" Lousy last words, before the whole room was engulfed in fire, I walked back into the room to find the whole place blackened, and Shine lying against a wall, battered and burnt, but alive, "good." I walked over to him, more quickly this time, and picked him up, enjoying his little wheeze of pain as I lifted him to a standing position while I crouched down so I could look at him eye to eye. His face was a mess, it was broken all over and most of it was burnt black, one of his eyes was burnt to a crisp, yet his other eye remained staring fearfully at me, I smiled again, before I reached up with one had to his horn, grabbed it firmly, and snapped it clean off, he wheezed again, gee wonder what happened to his lungs. Still smiling I brought his blackened horn right up to his face, and then stabbed him in his other eye, then again, then again, then I started stabbing him in the neck, I think I was there for about three minutes stabbing him, even though I'm sure he dies about half a minute into it, before I finally let his body drop.

I stood up, and breathed out, parts of the room where on fire, but I didn't notice, I just stood there breathing in the smells of burning wood. "That went well... wait what?" Was I talking? I experimented a bit more, "yes, hello, shut up, fuck you, goddamit YES!" I was talking!
"Focus, we need to burn this place and get out of here."
"oh yeah, of course, you're right." I quickly got out of the room, finally noticing the mortal peril I was in, before closing the door, now time to burn down his legacy. I headed down the stairs, throwing down another scorcher orb every few floors, before then heading down into the lab again, grabbing some more orbs and then picking up one of the lances. "Always wanted to do this," yeah I was now talking to myself out loud, but if you'd gone for as long as I had without talking you would too. Anyways I headed to the doorway, turned around, and fired the lance at the box of scorcher orbs, they went up spectacular, setting off a few more explosions from other experiments. Grinning I turned the lance on other parts of the lab, blasting them apart as the heat connected with more explosive experiments, after about a minute of this enjoyment, I finally headed back up, satisfied that no one would be getting anything out of that wreckage.

I got to the main room, idly noticing that the sun was coming up, and checked to make sure I had everything, survival guides, food, books on rune magic, and yep, I had everything. With that I walked into the library, and started shooting again, blasting the creepy little gecko to molten gold, before setting fire to countless precious books, normally I'd cringe at the loss of so many books, but right now, I was on a mission, a mission to burn Shine legacy to the ground. I gave the kitchen the same treatment, before heading out into the courtyard, noticing that smoke was now coming out of the top of the tower now, well that sure speeds things up, I quickly turned the lance on large swathes of the garden as I made my way to the exit, stopping as the gate opened to turn around and view my work.

The tower was smoking now, and even parts of the outside were on fire now, that couldn't last much longer, parts of the garden were on fire too, the smoke rising out into the air, they'll probably assume this was a lab accident when they get here, that's if they knew what he was doing, they probably did, in any case I'd now burned down any evidence of what exactly caused the fire, still I had to get out of here quickly to avoid getting spotted, the other ponies would be noticing this soon. Perhaps my awe at the destruction I had caused was what had lead me to ignore the world around me, or maybe it was just really loud at the time, but regardless I was quite surprised when I heard a small squeak behind me.

I spun around bringing the lance back up to aim to see Lightwing, standing there shaking and with her already enormous eyes widened to impossible proportions. I lowered the lance slightly as two words crossed my mind, "well fuck."
"No witnesses, she can't tell the others."
"But she's been ice, pervy but nice, besides maybe she doesn't know it was us?"
"We're holding a fire lance, she'd have to be an absolute idiot not to figure it out."
"But, she didn't do anything."
"No witnesses!"
Throughout this exchange Lightwing had been standing there watching me mentally argue with myself as I stared up at the sky, before eventually she seemed to work up the courage to speak, "um, hello, are you okay there."
I turned my gaze back to Lightwing as she squeaked again before huddling up a bit, innocent, ditzy little Lightwing, and sighed as I raised the lance again, "sorry." I could see myself in her eyes as she stared at me, standing there against a background of fire, golden lance in hand, and a face tired and weary yet still set firm as stone, "no witnesses," I pulled the trigger.