It was several days journey to where the storage site was approximately located. It rained the whole way there. I had made some modifications to the rain boots I had bought, so they now fit well, and kept my hooves dry. But the ground became increasingly muddy, slowing progress. I had brought rain gear with me, but the kid ended up spending most of his time wet and shivering. By the time we finally trotted into view of the temporary storage site, he was looking a bit under the weather. The supposed storage site wasn't much to look at. It was a fenced compound, located at what had been a crossroad between two rail lines. Inside, various buildings, all sharing the same prefabricated design, were scattered amidst rows of rusting rail cars. If I hadn't been led here by the documents we had found, I would have simply assumed it to be just another rail car storage facility. The place didn't even have any signs or markings proclaiming what it was. Which, when I thought about it, was strange. I had seen places like this, several had been converted into towns as boxcars made good pre-made homes. But most had some sort of indication of what they were called, even it it was just "rail yard 7".

Come to think of it, the last building hadn't ether, it had just been an office building, the only reason I had gone in was because I had the address from the papers I found. I had just figured that, since it was half ruined, whatever name it had was long gone. But the one thing this site and that had in common was a complete lack of any identifying markings. It was odd really. It wasn't like storage sites. even those for prewar weapons or confiscated zebra gear, were that huge of a secret. I'd been in several myself, unfortunately long after they had already been looted. They always proclaimed that they belong to one ministry or another. I wondered what made this one so different. Were they both just to new to have signs made yet? Maybe to many ministries were involved with this place to proclaim them all? But both these places were practically made to be inconspicuous. It was like the only thing to be noticed about them was how little there was to notice.

The fence around the rail yard was rusting away, and it was simple enough to get in through a large hole in one side. Of course, the documents had only told us that things were shipped to this facility, not where inside they were stored. Which meant we were going to have to check everything. Thankfully, the many generations of wasteland ponies had actually helped us here. The boxcars sitting around the rail yard were all standing with open doors, anything of value long since looted. I ignored them. Instead, I began to weave my way through the boxcars, heading for the largest of the prefab buildings. Before I got halfway though, my ears perked up, swiveling to the left as they began to pick up a slight shifting of gravel under a light tread. I silently sank into the crouch, dimly aware of the kid, eyes wide, mimicking me.

Down at this level, it was easy to peer under the boxcars, searching out who or what was moving our way. I glimpsed paws and tensed, until I saw they were much to small for a hellhound. Just a common feral dog. Not particularly dangerous to an armed pony, unless.... I looked, and spotted another set of paws further out. And another, and another. Great, some pack obviously had taken up the boxcars as some sort of den. And now they probably thought diner was delivering itself to them. Even as I watched, the nearest set of paws stepped up into a run. I moved, leaping up into the nearest boxcar, letting the walls keep the dogs from getting at my sides. From up here, I can see several of the feral dogs racing through the boxcars towards me. I pull out the bit, aim, and fire. The nearest dog goes down, face crumpling in around a tin can. A second flips end over end, a clipboard sticking out of its rib cage. The rest are between boxcars, out of my sights. I check behind me, but none are coming at me from there. I look back just in time for one to come out from under the nearest car and leap for me, I fire wildly, and several cups fly past it before a pencil punctures its throat. I still hear paws scrambling in the gravel nearby, but none enter the car. Then, I hear the kid squealing beneath me.

I leap down, and see the kid. He apparently had tried hiding under the boxcar, and now a pair of hounds had him, one grabbing his tail, the other chewing on the kids foreleg, but only managing to scratch the paint on the pipbuck. I fired. several rocks impacted the hounds, crushing ribs on one, snapping the neck of the other. They dropped, and I turned, ears swiveling. No more sounds reached my ears, apparently, that was all of them, at least in this area. The kid was still lying their, trembling, staring at the pair of dogs that, if it wasn't for their poor choice of holds, could have torn him to bits. He was lucky to get out of it with only a scratched pipbuck. Well, that wasn't quit all. I tried pulling him out from under the car, but the feral dogs corpse refused to let go of his tail. I just pulled harder, leaving half the kids tail hair in the hounds mouth.

"Lucky it wasn't your head." I growl, when the kid squeals in pain. "Next time remember your gun."

I kept moving, entering the largest building. Its door opened easily with the push of a hoof. Obviously, it had already been looted numerous times. Still, I went through every desk and cabinet. Nothing worth anything, but when you could use old tins as ammo, it didn't really matter. I chucked all the old junk I found into the ammo can that fed Practicality. It took a little while a while to search the largest building, but there was nothing here. Desks and junk yes, treasure, no. Still, it was odd, still no identification on anything, not even in a few papers I found. everything here was the same generic items in any office. I moved to the next largest building, and found much the same. Nothing I wouldn't have found in a dozen places, no identification of anything. No indication that anything of value was ever kept here. I trotted out and looked around. There were several buildings left. Which one to search next? I would have thought anything of value would be in the largest building. But it was empty. So then, where would I hide something I really didn't want someone to find?

I looked around, and spotted it. It was barely a building. Small, square, with one door and no windows. Something I usually found full of old junction boxes and pipes. The kind of place no one would notice, or search, at least, before the bombs. The kind of place you might try and hide something if you were smart about it. I headed over. The walls were thick concrete, the door heavy steel, with the usual warnings about electricity. Nothing too unusual, except the door was still locked. Finally, a good sign. It took a bit, the lock was surprisingly well made for what was supposed to be an electrical facility, but I finally managed it. Inside was... electrical junction boxes and pipes. And a large hatch set into the floor, with a terminal. I turned to order the kid to hack it, and realized he wasn't there. With a sigh, I went to find him.

I found him in what looked to be some kind of break room, back in the largest building, devouring cram. I ushered him to the terminal and set him to work. It took a little while, enabling me to scour the room for tools, which I packed away. Tools were hard to make, and fetched a decent price. Finally though, the door swung open, revealing dusty steps leading down into the earth. I cautiously moved down, keeping an eye out for additional defenses. Anyplace this secret had to have a few. And I was right. As soon as I put a hoof into the room lightning arched down from the ceiling, striking were my hoof would have been if I hadn't already pulled it back. I backed away swiftly. I knew this kind of trap, though, judging by the sever scorching it was leaving, and how my fur was standing on end, this had quit a bit more juice behind it then average. But it couldn't pump out that kind of juice for long, and after a moment, it shorted out. I cautiously stepped into the room.

It was an office. Underground, hidden by layers upon layers of secrecy, was a normal looking office. Desks lined up in rows, broken terminals, even a break room I could spot through a side door. The only thing that set it apart from every other abandoned office I had encountered was the large steel reinforced door set in the far wall, next to a still functioning terminal. The kid got to work, and I began sorting through papers at nearby desks, seeing if they had anything of interest. Really though, something felt... off. It was to easy. The place was abandoned, no raider, no monsters, just an empty building with a locked door. True, it was really well hidden, and had a good trap for intruders, but things in the wasteland were never this easy.

That feeling was confirmed when the kid suddenly started yelling at the terminal.

"Whats wrong?" I sighed, prepared for the worst.

"It locked me out!" He exclaimed, angrily. "I was so certain I had it, but it just locked me out! Now I can't get in at all!'"

Well, I had thought this was to easy. "Ok kid, time to try my way." I said. "Get upstairs and wait there."

The kid looked confused, but headed upstairs. It only took a minute for me to set the charge. I raced back upstairs, passing the kid, who had only gone as far as the stair door. When he saw me move clear across the room and behind some heavy metal pipes however, he followed, finding his own cover. A few seconds later, a deafening "Blam!" filled the air, sending dust shifting down from the ceiling. I waited another couple of minutes, then made my way back down to the basement, the kid following. The door still stood, but the locking mechanism was toast. Papers now littered the room, blown around from the blast. Making sure the kid wasn't in the way, I placed my shoulders against the door and shoved, and after a moments effort, the whole thing fell over with a deafening clang. I poked by head into the room. Dust and papers were strewn about everywhere, but the only damage here would have been from the shock wave.

Inside the sealed room, shelves upon shelves greeted my eyes. I still stepping in cautiously, not wanting a hidden turret to ruin my day. There were none in the vault,apparently this was a lower priority then the vault back in Seaddle. But there seemed to be a good reason for that. The room was full of large shelves. Large empty shelves. Nearly the entire room was empty. And, judging by the dust, had been that way for a long time. I growled, but moved forwards, towards the only thing of interest, the last row of shelves, far in the back, were filled with boxes.

Opening one, I gazed inside at a collection of grey cloaks with gemstone clasps, and my mood immediately improved. Zebra stealth cloaks, rare, and valuable. Best yet, they conferred invisibility to the wearer, making my job of sneaking through ruins in hostile areas much easier. Or would have anyway. The gemstones of the clasps were all cracked, ruining the cloaks for invisibility. Unless I could find a zebra or unicorn that could enchant new gemstones, the cloaks were only useful as, well, cloaks.

I turned, and saw the kid was chest-deep in a footlocker, pulling out pistol after pistol. I figured he had earned some of the goods, and left him to his loot. Only this shelf had anything on it, but the wall also had rows of lockers. So hopefully I could get something out of this. Finally, after about an hour, we had gone through the room. 3 crates of weapons, including the pistols kid had found, 2 more boxes of ruined zebra stealth cloaks, and 1 box of explosives. The rest of it was research papers and other worthless paper. Still, a half decent haul. Nothing that would break the bank... well, if equestria still had banks, but enough to get by comfortably on for a couple months, if I bartered well. Then, we got to work on the papers.

Redacted, redacted, everything was redacted. It didn't make much sense. Yes, most of this stuff was confiscated zebra gear, but nothing really rare, nothing I could think of that needed this level of secrecy. Even the research was mostly dead ends, papers stored on failed projects that went no where. I kept seeing the names of different ministries on these, but the names never came up on the other, non-project papers. Or, if it had been, it was now redacted. But I wanted to get to the bottom of this. Whatever had been taken from here had to have been removed prewar. No one looting afterwards would have bothered locking up after themselves, or leave the rest of this. So this trail of clues could still be leading somewhere, if only I could pick it up again.

We set up camp in the vault. I figured if it had held off being looted for two hundred years, it would be the safest place to stay the night, even with the door laying face down outside. I left the kid to read through more papers, seeing as he was managing to get through them twice as fast as I was. I went outside and got to work on the dogs. No use letting the meat and hides go to waste after all. It took over an hour to skin and get the choice cuts from each dog, since I couldn't carry all the meat. I took them back inside and used papers we had already read through to make a small fire, to warm the basement and cook the meat. I was spitting a cut of dog when the kid wandered over, took one look at what I was preparing, and went pale.
"But... that's meat!" He squeaked. I almost laughed.

"Its food." I said, rolling my eyes. "You want to keep living, you take what you can get." He looked even more pale now, if that was possible. "Plenty left on the carcasses, if you don't mind the poorer cuts. Might even get some good sausage if you use the guts."

That was to much for the kid, he bolted up the stairs and outside, where I could hear him heaving. I shrugged, and went back to cooking my dinner. The kid came back, but he didn't seem to have much of an appetite.

After I ate, I went through the two boxes of weapons I had found and claimed, taking them apart, cleaning them, and swapping parts around.

"What are you doing?" The kid asked, looking up from more papers he had been reading to study what I did. When I raised an eyebrow, he simply said "You asked what was wrong."

I rolled my eyes, but answered. "I'm finding all the best parts, and putting them together into one gun to make that one worth the most. I'm also cleaning them. You should probably do the same with yours." He looked confused, then looked over to the box of pistols he had opened first. Apparently it had never occurred to him that finders rights still applied. He perked up and went over to the box, pulling out all the small pistols inside. He did his best, but it was obvious he had little idea what he was doing. Well, I wasn't his teacher, I was... What exactly? Traveling partner? Guide? Bodyguard? Well, it didn't mater anyway. I set up the landmines, then settled down for sleep.

....

The next day was spent going through more papers. Well, mostly the kid went through them while I scavenged my way through the entire facility. Besides the vault, not much was worth taking, except as ammo for practicality. Hours past until we got something to go on. A barrel full of documents someone had tried to torch before leaving. They had done a really poor job, most just being singed. One listed that a load of... redacted, had been shipped to... oh no, no, the universe could not be that cruel. But of course it was. We checked every other document, but their were no other leads. If I wanted to follow this trail to the end, the next stop was in the last corner of Equestria that I ever wanted to visit. Fillydelphia.

I suppressed a shudder. The home of that slaving bastard, and the largest slave... well, outpost didn't really do it justice. Fortress? Kingdom? In Equestria. There was no getting in, except in chains, and no getting out except possibly in a mass grave. I had never been in Red-Eyes fortress, and never wanted to set hoof inside, unless it was to shove a grenade up that bastards tail hole. But the stories that filtered out... well, lets just say if I got captured their, my best option was to set off all the explosives and hope I took a few of them with me. True, judging by the location given, this storage facility was located in a section of Fillydelphia far from the slaver fortress, which was in what had been the industrial center of the city. Still, the brotherhood of steel was nearby, though they weren't that hostile, if you carried nothing that interested them. But slavers were a constant threat, along with the deadly creatures found everywhere in Equestria. The air, while not as bad as near the slaver fortress, as still mildly toxic, and radiation was also higher then average.

Of course, I could end this quest, call it quits, and just keep going from ruin to ruin, finding junk to trade in for a good meal, and maybe some stimpacks on a good day. Yeah, great option that. Spent half my life doing it, and got nothing more then a packsaddle of junk to show for it. Screw it, I had a chance for once to make some decent caps, and I was going for it. And, well, lets face it, and this point, I just had to know what in Equestria needed this many levels of secrecy to hide. That decided, I began packing everything of value into my pack saddle.

"We're leaving?" The kid asked, looking up from more papers he was going through.

"Yup." was my slightly tense reply.

"Where are we going?" He asked.

"Fillydelphia" I sighed.

Level Up! New perk added: Explosive Safe cracker, level 2: Lock to tricky? Terminal unhackable? Just blow it up! Using explosives on a door or safe now has a 20% lower chance of destroying all valuables inside.

Author's Note

Yes, promised a cover. Good news it, I made one. Bad news is my scanner wont connect to my computer, so I can't upload it at the moment. Hopefully I'll figure out something soon.