FIENDS FROM THE PAST

Job 3: Who You Calling A Horse?

Sly travels around the island to the place where he first saw a guard. Sure enough, another unicorn is in view, on his rotting patrol route. Sly pulls out his binoc-u-com and focuses on the unicorn. "So, run this by me again," he says.

"The large grassy hill, er, building is an area where the Unicorn guards go when they're off-shift," Bentley says, adjusting his glasses. "In addition to chatting and joking with each other, the energy readings indicate there are one or more underground competitions going on. Given their original status as uni equus ferus hornski, and our information needs, our best bet is to disguise Murray as one of them and send him in to participate in a few... hornfights."

"Hornfights?" Sly asks, zooming in on the unicorn's head. "Wouldn't I be better at that?"

"You're not big enough to pull off the costume," Bentley says, "and Murray's actually pretty decent; he and... he took lessons from, uh, P-penelope when he wasn't doing demolition derby."

"And we know she took out Lefwee, and he'd been doing sword fights across the seas for years," Sly murmurs. "Did he ever win?"

"I don't recall, but he certainly came close. Look Sly, for this to work we need to make the disguise as authentic as possible." Bentley leans in close to the camera. "Murray's using some of our spare costumes to put together a reasonable horse disguise, but you're going to have to get us some items unique to these unicorns."

Sly twirls his cane a couple times. "Okay, what do I need to steal?

"I'm going to need a jacket, the pants, one of those pulse laser rifles, and a horn."

Sly takes a moment to process this. "When was the last time Murray fit into pants?"

"Focus, Sly."

"Right," Sly says. "I'll have those for you in a jiffy."

With that, Sly puts his binoc-u-com away and looks back at the unicorn guard wandering around. This one seems to have its horn more firmly attached than most, so he works on its pants instead, first clearing them of any coins or valuables like his... horn sharpener?... and then working on the pants themselves. Reaching around without touching the tail and undoing the belt is a tad bit tricky, as is lowering the zipper, but the guy just walks straight out of them after that, leaving Sly with an enormous pair of pants to gather up.

It breaks the laws of physics, but he puts them in his leg pouch. I... I don't even know how to explain that.

With that done, he continues, moving down the beach until he spots another unicorn, this one idly playing with his horn. Sly makes a face. It just seems wrong, to see someone taking their horn out like that in public. And there's so much rotting flesh on this one's head that he can't put it back up there; it dances disturbingly when the guard tries. So the guard sticks his horn in his pocket, where it wobbles as he walks. Sly has to pickpocket carefully, as the dehorned unicorn keeps taking it out to play with it, rubbing it between his front hooves and muttering about how no one will know he's a unicorn if it doesn't get reattached, about how being hornless diminishes him.

Yeesh.

Sly grabs it and then makes sure to get far, far away. Which is... probably for the best, really. He puts the horn in his thigh pouch, too.

Though not before holding it up to his forehead and snickering to himself.

His next target is circling the safe-house. This zombie unicorn is wearing his jacket open, sparing Sly the trouble. It still takes a few minutes of work to get his jacket off. The thing is so big, Sly could use it as a blanket.

And he puts that in his thigh pouch, too, because what do we need realism for?

He locates the last guard he has to steal from circling the large grassy mound-building they need the disguise to enter. Before Sly gets down to taking the rifle, where it's slung loosely over the unicorn's shoulder, he stops to take out his binoc-u-com and just look at Murray.

Murray's standing on top of the building. It looks like the first step of his disguise was painting himself white; his shirt, belt, and gloves stand out like lasers in the dark. His mask still covers his eyes, but strapped to it is a white snout (calling it a horse's nose would be generous, it looks more like it came off a white pig). A sparkly white feather boa is safety-pinned to the back of his belt for a tail.

All told, it's already a more convincing disguise than the one he used on Rajan. It still drives Sly to shake his head. If anyone but Bentley were telling them it'd work, he'd say they were out of their mind. But... well, it was Bentley. And Bentley isn't wrong very often.

So Sly paces behind that last unicorn until he's distracted, then disconnects one end of the strap. The rifle drops to the ground, strap slithering behind it; the unicorn doesn't notice a thing. Sly picks it up; the gun's so long it stretches from his shoulders to his knees. So of COURSE he puts it in his thigh pouch. That thing is like the TARDIS, I swear.

Still, now that that's taken care of, Sly climbs up to Murray and pulls the disguise out of his pouch. Murray takes it and puts everything on, adjusting his belt to hold up the pants, then frowning. "This feels weird," he says.

"It looks weird," Sly says, studying him. "I can't remember the last time you wore pants."

"These are the first that fit since I was a teenager," Murray says. "Maybe they'll help my belt stay up." Murray adjusts his mask to make the horn more secure.

Sly... decides not to comment on the whole belt thing. "Do you need me to do anything else? Sneak in after you, or eavesdrop for passwords?"

"Nah. Bentley said the zombies don't have the brains for a password."

Sly laughs. "I guess they wouldn't. See you around, big guy."

Sly runs off, and Murray leaps from the roof. He enters the building and, with the flash of a loading screen, he's inside. And I'm just going to stop there for a minute, because this place is huge.

Around the edges of the building are a variety of restaurants and places for guards to sit and relax; several of them are doing so, mostly unicorns, with the few vampire dogs that can be seen serving at the restaurants. Ramps, leading to a higher level, are evenly spaced around the walls in four locations. The center of the area is a few feet lower, with some sort of... course built in. Unicorns are crowded around the sides, cheering wildly as small teams of unicorns and terriers in matching vests try to steal from each other without being stolen from.

"That looks like fun," says Murray.

"I bet it is, but you're only one person, Murray. If you want someone to talk to, we'll need to impress them first. Try going upstairs."

"But there aren't any stairs."

Bentley's sigh echoes through the maskpiece. "It's a figure of speech. Just go up, Murray."

"Righteous!"

Murray heads for the nearest ramp, and walks up it. The pants chafe a little, and he adjusts them as he walks. Paint peels off him in places as he walks, giving him a more zombie-like appearance. If rotting flesh were pink, anyway.

Up here is more like it. There are sarsaparilla stands up here, and a few lemonade bars. But there were also several sword fighting rings, with lots of betting going on, and a Unicorn surrounded by a small crowd loudly proclaiming, "I'm the best there is, I am. I can beat anybeast at any fight, horn, sword, or teeth. No one out there can challenge me, that's for sure."

"Oh yeah?" Murray bursts in, elbowing his way through the crowd. "And what if someone does, huh?"

"Oh, I've got a challenger, do I? Never seen you around here before. If you lose to me, fresh meat, you'll owe me a hundred coins, is that a bargain?"

"It sure enough is!" yells Murray. "And when you lose, you've gotta tell me everything about everything here."

The crowd chuckles; apparently it's common for newcomers not to know much.

"All right, but I hope you're ready to lose," says the other unicorn.

Murray gets a quick warm-up round, which familiarizes him with the controls: square is still attack and X is still jump, but the circle button lets him jab straight ahead, and the triangle button lets him guard. The winner is whoever's struck their opponent the most after three minute-long rounds... or whoever beats the other one into submission first.

It takes Murray two rounds.

"I ain't a sore loser, chum," says the unicorn after, coming over to Murray. "Let me buy you a drink. What'd you like to know, new guy?"

"Well," says Murray, "what can you tell me about those caves in back of the islands?"

"Not as much as I'd like, I wager," says the unicorn, walking beside him, tail swinging. "One o'ems where the vampires live, but I don't know which. Can't get close enough to 'em to check. But one o'em, I'll point it out to you, is where our boss keeps the captives."

JOB COMPLETE

Murray and his new friend share a trough of Sarsaparilla together.

Available Jobs:

Captive Cavern