This city was crowded and modern, but didn’t quite have the distinction of being a city-state like Liverypool or Trottingham. Abbeyford-upon-Avon was built upon the bend of a river and located near a natural clay deposit, a valuable resource. The largest building in town was the Brickworks Orphanarium, which was both a brickworks and an orphanarium all in one colossal super-structure.

Every single building in the city seemed to be made of brick and the streets had brick pavers. Each one of the houses was the same as the next, all of them narrow rowhouses, all connected, with each block of rowhouses forming a perfect grid. Near as Dim could tell, the town was ten streets wide and ten streets long, with each city block appearing to be a perfect square. The brickworks existed outside of the city proper, sitting on the riverbend, because a brickworks needed copious amounts of water.

The streets were narrow, cramped, and one might even say claustrophobic. Everything—buildings, streets, ponies—was covered in a patina that consisted of coal and brick dust. Sewage ran through open gutters found in the streets. For Dim, this city was a time capsule; it had industrialised, and then had progressed no further beyond that point.

He had been the only pony getting off of the train, and no wonder. Abbeyford-upon-Avon was the sort of place you got on a train to get away from. Ponies did not come here, they fled this place. A perpetual cloud of miserable smog hung over the city—something a band of pegasus ponies could remove, if one had enough of them—and very little sunlight reached the streets.

Dim found it charming.

“Oi, fancy a shag, Guvna?”

Blinking behind his goggles, Dim turned to look at the source of the voice. A filly, maybe around her decade mark, was giving him a hopeful look. She had far too much makeup caked upon her face, not to mention her pelt was stained with coal and brick dust. Each one of her ribs stood out in sharp relief and the very sight of the scabs on her lips made Dim’s penis shrivel up in fright. No doubt, she was a fine collection of plagues, maladies, and diseases, and she probably had them in equal proportion to the years of her life.

“Sod off, trollop,” Dim replied.

“Oi! Suit yerself, ya poof!” the filly screeched in an unpleasant voice made gritty by pollution. “Ye bleedin’ fairy, ye think yer too good for this, well you can have a right and proper feck off, ye great, smelly twat!”

Black flakes rained down like snowflakes touched by evil and Dim knew that he needed to find a boarding house of some sort. Curious ponies looked at him, stared at him, and his sensitive ears could hear them talking about him. A mysterious figure beneath his hat and cloak, Dim shuffled through the streets, a stranger come to town.

That was how stories started; a stranger came to town.

The Kingspony was said to be the fanciest place in town and Dim tried to ignore his revulsion. It was a tavern with rooms for rent. In the common room, two types of ponies seemed the most prevalent, and both wore pith helmets. Custodial officers, or bobbies as they were known, were gathered together in one corner to have a pint. They wore black uniforms and had black custodial helmets.

The other group present appeared to be war veterans. Dim knew their type well enough. They too, wore pith helmets, their old army helmets, and their khaki jackets, which were stained like everything else in this alicorn forsaken city. Many of the old soldiers appeared armed, having pistols affixed to braces worn around the foreleg. One of the many privileges to Grittish service and somehow surviving one of their many wars; the right to bear arms.

Guns were common here on the isles, and necessary too, to deal with the horrendous wildlife that existed between the patches of civilisation. Equestria relied more on magic, or so Dim believed. Guns were insignificant compared to the power of just one moderately capable unicorn.

There were many eyes upon him, studying him, measuring him up, both the soldiers and the bobbies. He ignored them, not concerned by them in the slightest, and made his way over to the bar with the hopes of inquiring about a room. Behind the bar was a wrinkled, wizened old unicorn who wore an eyepatch and a monocle, a strange combination if ever there was one.

Going by his senses, Dim knew that the old unicorn was almost a magical dud. A weak spark of magic existed, just enough to make his no doubt dreary, humdrum life a little more bearable. The disgusting primitives all around him had gone back to drinking, and Dim could feel far fewer eyes upon him. It always made things better when you were about to spend money.

“Greetings.” The one-eyed unicorn had a strange accent, and was not from these isles. “I rent rooms by the night or by the week, but never by the hour. I run a respectable establishment here, and don’t want no whores within my walls.”

“That will not be a problem,” Dim replied, and he thought about the filly that had propositioned him earlier. The memory made him shiver and he felt an icy prickle in his balls.

“The rented room comes with one free meal a day, the kitchen special. No substitutions.” The unicorn removed his monocle, leaned over the counter, and squinted at his customer. “The going rate is one sterling pegasus crown. No haggling.”

“Oh dear.” Dim kept his smile to himself, but looked the squinty unicorn in the eye. “That is pretty pricy. A week’s wages in these parts, right? I fear all I have on me at the moment are sterling unicorn crowns and some sterling bars. Can you make change?” Much to his satisfaction, he saw the old unicorn’s surviving eye go wide.

“I can do that, your Lordship,” the unicorn behind the bar replied, his whole demeanour changing.

The coin and currency on these isles had been confusing at first, but Dim had caught on. There were shoes, crowns, and bars. Shoes were the lowest value, with earth pony, pegasus pony, and unicorn pony shoes, with unicorn shoes being the most valuable. The same principle worked for crowns, It took one-hundred earth pony crown coins to equal a single pegasus crown, and ten pegasus crown coins had the value of a single unicorn crown. A sterling bar was something that most of these disgusting primitives never even saw during their pathetic lives, and was worth twenty unicorn crowns.

“Name, if you please?” The unicorn behind the counter looked nervous now, and eager to please.

“Harsh Winter,” Dim replied, wondering if perhaps he should change his name again. It would mean printing up new business cards. He had a troubling conundrum in the fact that he needed a name, a name had weight, reputation, but a name could also be traced, tracked, and followed. There seemed to be no easy solution.

“I’ve heard of you,” the one-eyed unicorn said.

“You have?” Dim felt a prickle of worry.

“Aye, I have.” The one-eyed unicorn slipped his monocle back into place. “You hunted down the Southbury Slasher, that real nasty bit of work that was raping and murdering young mares and school fillies. Is it… is it… is it true that you hung him from a bridge and set him on fire, like the papers say?”

Dim smiled, a chilling sight. “What else does one do with mad dogs and killers when they are apprehended? I had an inspector from Shetland Yard with me and he had a writ to dispense justice on apprehension.” He felt eyes on him once more, and Dim knew that the bobbies were staring at him now. Somehow, by sheer luck, Dim had cultivated the illusion of respectability. His aristocratic charm, his charisma, his sweet, honeyed words—for some reason, ponies believed him to be good.

Reaching into his saddlebags with his magic, he pulled out a sterling unicorn crown, flipped it with a telekinetic flick, caught it, and then put it down upon the counter. He pushed it towards the one-eyed unicorn while offering up his best aristocratic smile. There was this almost worshipful adoration in the remaining eye of the tavern-keeper and this amused Dim a great deal.

To be celebrated for monstrous acts while maintaining a thin veneer of legitimacy…

“Aye, I’ll get your key and show you to your room. I have a nice one up on the top floor and something tells me you won’t mind the stairs, much.”

Dim nodded. Stairs were for disgusting primitives. He would climb them, once, to become familiar with the location, and then wink to get to and fro. After all, he had to keep his magical muscles in peak condition, and that meant constant casting. In an unfortunate quirk of life, Dim was not given a talent for magic, which meant that he had to work to be good at it, a fact that he oft lamented when he was deep in his cups.

The streets were slick with half-frozen sewage and a creeping mist glazed the bricks with rime. The day had been quite warm—unbearably so—but the nighttime temperature had dropped down far below freezing. This was a different city at night. The street lamps, what few there were, offered up a minimum of flickering light. Most were broken, rusted over, while others had shattered glass. Evidence of neglect could be found everywhere in this city.

Smoke belched from the brickworks, and production never ceased. Nightsoil ponies were already out and doing their rounds, pulling wagons full of disgusting filth. Coal was being hauled from the train station to the brickworks at night, when there was little traffic in the streets. Most of the shops had closed, but a few still had lights in their windows.

Dim had come here seeking a local henge, which was about twenty miles or so out of town. It was a big one, well preserved, and all manner of strange things were said to happen around it. Some of the local superstitions stated that it was a half-open portal to Tartarus, which was nonsense of course. What could disgusting primitives possibly know about portals to Tartarus?

With his own eyes, Dim had seen a visual portal to Tartarus, cast by his mother, and he had looked upon the many forbidden wonders of that terrible place. He had experienced it with a bird’s eye view and it had left quite an impact upon him as a foal. It was a warm, pleasant memory, a time when he had been happy with his mother… and Darling. Looking into Tartarus had frightened Darling so, and for her fear, she had been savagely spanked, rebuked, and sent to bed without supper.

To be afraid was the unforgivable sin of the Dark family.

Snapped from his distraction, Dim noticed two ponies shuffling towards him. Robbers? Cretins? Smelly beggars? One was an earth pony, young, with a powerful build, the other a stout, somewhat chubby pegasus of middle age. The earth pony wore a curious hat and had bright, inquisitive eyes. It was odd to see bright, inquisitive eyes round these parts.

“You there,” the earth pony said. “Are you a wizard?”

Clearing his throat, Dim replied, “I am.”

“Fantastic!” The earth pony seemed jittery, excited, and quite overjoyed by that answer. “My name is Fetlock Combs, and this is my companion, Doctor Washboard. And you are?”

“A wizard,” Dim replied in deadpan.

“Right!” Fetlock Combs exclaimed with a wide grin. “Would that be ‘wizard,’ or ‘vizard?’ There is a distinction.”

In spite of his own serious mien, Dim chuckled, getting the joke and finding it amusing. “I am vizard, and you vould be vise to fear me.”

“That’s what I thought!” Fetlock now appeared quite animated, while his companion was subdued. “I had you pegged as a vizard, a more explody, fling-spells-like-confetti type who specialises in rampant destruction.”

As much as it pained Dim to admit it, the earth pony was quite amusing—and well versed in wizards, for an earth pony. His senses told him that he was being buttered up, and he began to wonder why. Was he being hunted? Looked for? Sought out? Dim kept his suspicions under check, reining them in, but he was ready to obliterate the funny earth pony in an eyeblink.

“My companion, Doctor Washboard and I, we came here to investigate some curious goings on out on the local moors and the disappearances happening here in town. There is said to be quite an evil hound roaming about, and the disappearances are thought to be connected somehow.”

Doctor Washboard sighed, causing his bulk to heave and strain against his threadbare tweed jacket. Dim, eyeballing the pegasus, sized him up. Well muscled legs covered with calluses could only mean one thing—Doctor Washboard had served in the military, and had worn armor for a considerable time. This made the chubby, almost sleepy looking doctor quite dangerous.

“Perhaps you could help us,” Fetlock suggested.

“Perhaps you could pay me,” Dim replied.

“What?” Fetlock looked startled. “Pay you? What about the common good? Your love for your fellow ponies? Have you no concern for their welfare? I was mistaken about you, I did not sniff-test you out as a mercenary.”

Disgusting primitives, so many disgusting primitives in need of incineration. Dim—slouching because he couldn’t be bothered to draw himself up to his full height for these insufferable cretins—glared at the earth pony who had said such vile, vile words. Vile words, offensive to vizard. If there was some way that he could get paid to get out of bed in the morning, Dim would exploit it with ruthless efficacy.

“Come, Doctor Washboard. Our work takes us elsewhere, perhaps with more charitable ponies.” Fetlock Combs began to walk away, looking disappointed, and his stout companion followed.

Good riddance, Dim thought to himself.

Author's Notes: