• Published 9th Jun 2017
  • 617 Views, 4 Comments

Embers Fall - CrimsonWave



A clan of evil electronic music producers go to the desert to wreak some havoc. Hilarity and possible destruction ensues.

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23 - You're Not Opening Them Up Hard Enough

in a rather uneventful drive (for one, they didn't have the same issues at the gas station that a certain other group of travellers had), Sun Beamer and Blast Furnace embarked on their journey to Duskgem, leaving reality in the back of an RV in case they wanted to get at it later. They left before dawn so they, hopefully, would arrive at the entry gates at a non-peak time period, and get in quick.

"You said that the Diablo told you that something could help us out with Obscurus in some way?" asked Blast Furnace. However, Sun Beamer didn't respond, as he was laying down, listening to music on his headphones.

Blast Furnace decided to poke him on the nose to get his attention. He sprung to live almost immediately, and took off his headphones.

"Blasty? What's wrong?" he bursted out in shock.

"Sorry about that. I guess you were really deep into whatever you were listening to there." replied Blast Furnace, as she heard faint rhythms coming from the headphones. "Deep house; that's a good choice of music for a long journey."

"I'm starting to this music more because it doesn't demand a spectacle like some of the other stuff I'm familiar with." Sun Beamer elaborated. "It can put itself in the foreground or stay in the background. It doesn't outright say you have to dance to it right this second; you can for a moment that feels just right."

"Yeah, I always cringe a bit when a DJ has to scream at us to put our hooves up since we're, apparently, not putting our hooves up hard enough ourselves." Blast Furnace joked. "When you have to treat your audience like preschool fillies to get heat out of them, your music isn't energetic enough, or they don't know how to properly interact with a DJ's show."

"I see what you mean." Sun Beamer agreed. "When I was working SSC one night, I made a drinking game out of how many times the DJ had to say something vulgar to make the crowd scream. If I had to chug half a spiked cider each time, I probably would have passed out by the halfway point. But thankfully, it was just a waterbottle - and it was actually quite hot out too."

Blast Furnace chuckled at the story. "Anyway, as I was trying to ask; you said that the Diablo told you that there was something you could buy that can help us to deal with whatever magic Obscurus uses?"

"Yeah. I asked for more information, and she said that the 'waves' produced by the augmented reality spell output a form of visible light, but that it's only truly visible if your vision is refracted in a certain way with something." explained Sun Beamer "She mentioned that an example of such an item is often sold at this time of year for use at fairs, but that they're also distributed at the Gathering to 'enhance' the experience for 'certain audiences', with a wink and a nudge."

"Oh, I know exactly what she means when she talks about 'certain audiences'." declared Blast Furnace, with a wink and a nudge of her own. "I'm personally shocked she even used that wording. There's more informal lingo related to it, but we try to keep internal matters somewhat more formal, to a degree."

"Is there a reason for why you're suddenly being opaque?" asked Sun Beamer.

"Yeah, because...." Blast Furnace crept closer to Sun Beamer. "... it's kinda ... sorta ... not lawful in the state of Neighvada yet." she whispered. "We're dealing with it; Duskgem isn't exactly a magical place where nothing is forbidden."

"Oh, we're talking about the landscapers, huh?" Smith Stone announced from the front seat.

"What part of 'we're not using that term anymore' did you not understand?" yelled Blast Furnace. The RV fell into an awkward silence.

"Sorry about that." she apologized to Sun Beamer. "Anyway, I remembered something; when I got dragged to a state fair once with the rest of my family, they were selling these 'fireworks glasses' that did something very similar to what Diablo was describing."

"What were they like?" asked a curious Sun Beamer.

"They looked like the 3D glasses they used to give out at theaters, but they made every point of light look like a rainbow-colored star." explained Blast Furnace. "It was trippy, disorienting, and something you should never use to look at a solar eclipse. Or the sun at all for that matter."

"If you're talking about what I think you're talking about, I am starting to see what you and Diablo were getting at." acknowledged Sun Beamer. "Although, it sounds like wearing those glasses for extended periods of time would probably be enough to turn nighttime exploration of Duskgem Basin into a trippy, disorienting mess by default."