>>379388
Ch. 1 Esoteric Knowledge
Song for chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXt6_qRmXHE&list=PLE7zb29jG-Zcf5b5EW7ODa1zRqDHMky4y&index=1
Cluck cluck, the waves of the lake tapped into the steel-hulled ferry. The water was grimy, with sub-marine clouds of dirt whirling around the bow of the ferry as it parted the waters. Sometimes two-headed crocodiles with serpentine, long bodies would reveal themselves as they'd breach the surface and scurry out of the ferry's path. They were known as nay-n-yays by the locals. It was based on a ghoul folktale were a pony ghoul was challenged to a game of riddles by a radioactive nay-n-yay. They were also pink and grey like hippos.
A midnight blue unicorn mare stood on the bow of the ferry; she gazed ahead at the coastal city of Bubbly Lake, The Cooked Mare. The frills hanging down from her black cartwheel hat waved in the, just faintly cool, breeze. A bouquet of poison joke flowers stuck to the side of the hat. Her face lit up every time she inhaled and disappeared every time she exhaled; the light revealed two narrowed cyan eyes with eyebrow like butterfly wings and black freckles on her cheeks, and when her face disappeared, it was due to silver smoke escaping her mouth as if she was a snoring dragon. Between the mare's teeth sat thin wooden rod. Delicate carvings depicting flowers spiral along it's barrel. The tip had a small metal contraption where one could fasten things, like the makeshift cigarette that glowed every time the mare took a breath. I looked like something between a cigarette holder and wand of sorcery. A tome was strapped with pair of belts to the left side of her barrel and a saddlebag was strapped to the other. There was also a holster for a chromed pistol with a long barrel attached to her right hoof while her left had wrist band of bullets around it. Only the very tip of her back tail that curled in spiral could been seen as the rest was obscured by mult-layered black and blue skirt. Her mane was tied into a bum but a few spirals of hair rested down her forehead. In her ears hung tiny silver sheriff stars.
The mare turned her head to the source of the waves. Into the distance and at the very center of the lake, the surface boiled. Year in, year out. At the eye of the this "storm", the surface acted as if it was something between a bubble bath and a fountain. A stable mound of foam, giant bubbles, and water broke the surface of the lake and as just much of navigation aid as the big silhouette of the clock tower that rose two "heads" above the other buildings in The Cooked Mare ahead of her. The ripples from this boiling mess were big waves. If one got too close with too weak of a ship, one would capsize into boiling hot water.
The locals didn't know why the middle of the lake was so hot but they certainly appreciate it. The fact that it was winter and yet you could barely feel it this far up north had meant a lot and would continue to mean a lot for the city bot economically and in terms of living conditions. Bubbly Lake was one of the few places in the Wasteland where settlements and civilization were if not blooming, at least budding.
The mare with the cartwheel hat, on the other hoof, knew why the lake was so hot. There magic radioactive waste at the bottom. Or rather and more accurately, there was non-active mega spell there. She knew this because she had encountered a non-active, aka snoozing, mega spell before back when she was part of the Broken Horse Shoe. She had taken note of its magic waves back then and so now when this lake gave of the same frequency she felt sure in her guess.
The energy it gave off was the lifeblood of The Cooked Mare and other settlements around the lake up here in the cold north and her prize. She was a bad mare.