>>100456Sea Breeze pauses for a moment at Dark Star’s question
“Well... the use of commandeered hotel rooms is intended for those agents brought in or recruited from abroad, who have no where to stay that is safe locally. Aren’t you from Baltimare?”
>>100523Through the windows on the left side of the corridor the landscape changes progressively as the train nears the city. Fields continue to dominate, but now villages of red roofed houses pass by with their small church steeples, and do too do mills and grain elevators that appear increasingly industrial. To the left of the tracks are another set of tracks facing the opposite direction, and at one point, the train passes a stream train carrying box cars, cars of grain, and cars that seem to be full of coal or minerals.
Nearing closer to the city, housing becomes denser, then come factories with great brick smoke stacks. At last the train comes to the side of a large river, where, further down, can be seen what must be a large power station, a building of tall brown walls and far taller stone stacks that send great amounts of white steam and smoke into the air. Further down the river still can be seen another river into which the present river combines. The train glides over the river through a black painted iron tied-arch bridge, and a similar bridge can be seen crossing the river further down. The city it enters has a number of square shaped high rise buildings piercing the sky, covered in glass, brick, and grey stone facades. Below these are lower stacked brick and grey faced tenement buildings, usually of four or so floors. The streets are crowded with carriages, and telephone lines stitch chaotically between buildings. Through more then one gap can be seen the railway of elevated subways.
As the train progresses further, it passes a change in scenery: through the trees of a park is a large stone castle - an old palace with walls and high towers - that, along with a gothic styled cathedral surrounded by apartments and office buildings, is among the last reminders that Bales, too, is an ancient city, almost as old as Equestria itself. Once the seat of a great, Northern Equestrian duchy, Bales adapted well to the Industrial Age, sitting at the convergence of two important rivers and now an important junction of railroads. Like Baltimare, where the only significantly historical buildings are colonial-aged buildings by the waterside, Bales is dominated by modern architecture, whatever you may think of it. Bales even more industrialized, and evidently wealthier than Baltimare, though it appears to be less wealthy than the old court city of Canterlot, where the city center is remains dominated by the quaint and well preserved townhomes, chateaus, and shops of the past.
Canterlot still has its history. Baltimare never had it. Bales must have lost its history in a major disaster, save a few important thick-stoned structures.
>>100625As iron passes the cold corpse of Peer Review, Pear has a comment
“All for a little money...”
Cauldron has a comment of her own
“They didn’t take the idol from him... he must have been shot, ran away, then succumbed to his wound...”
>>100657Silver is... ready, I guess?