Fallout: Equestria - The Ranger of Seamane

“Arrogance was one of the traits of the old world that brought it low. It was also one of the traits that the Steel Rangers kept alive and well within their ranks. Arrogance continues to hold back the new world.”
-Wastelander on Steel Rangers

“Okay, like I was saying nopony has been down there except for the Rangers so we have no idea what you’ll find. We left it alone once those metal heads left.” Crash Cart explained as I looked over the map.

It indicated that the place had been a wartime industrial site. I had expected some kind of cave, or hill, or something more obvious. Instead, it was about an hour south and in fact, we had even passed it on the way in. It seemed to be tucked away in what looked to be an industrial sector of the greater city limits, in particular a site known as Keepsake and Empire Excavations.

“Also given how little you all have dealt with the hydra and its kin let me give you a rundown on where they’re at currently.” Cart continued, pointing out the major roads. “The Five to the south seems to be clear so your trip south should be fine. North and west? Not so much, so stay to the south.”.

I nodded. “They tend to stay more to the core of the city around the blast crater?”

“Correct, and right now it seems they are mostly along the Five to the north and to the northwest around the crater.”

With a nod, I folded up the map and tucked it into my saddle bags. I stopped a moment and focused on my compass. I hadn’t tried to make use of this feature before but Sil had been messing with the Pipbuck for a few days. Set destination to K and E Excavations. A marker suddenly appeared on the compass before it faded from sight.

“Right, navigation features were part of the spritebots,” I muttered to myself. “That makes sense to be part of this. Well, that’s nice, getting that marked on my E.F.S.”

“Your knockoff has E.F.S.?” Crash Cart asked, looking at it curiously.

“It does. It’s made up of the guts of turrets, spritebots, some medical equipment, and computer repair equipment, so it mostly works as intended.” I informed him. “Barring when it flashes with random data when plugging into a terminal. Of course, I’ve only done that once so maybe that’s intended. I’d have to ask a Stable pony. Or a Stable-Tec ghoul.”

“Curious that it didn’t automatically set where you wanted to go.” Crash Cart said, tapping his chin.

“I had to mentally think about it and focus on the Pipbuck Zero for it to be so. Don’t think it’s properly interfaced into my magic field like an actual pipbuck.” I replied with a shrug. “It’s also not as durable as a Stable-Tec Pipbuck or powered by a diamond so I have to keep gem packs on me.”

“Oh, I see. How interesting.” Crash Cart said, tapping his chin more as he pondered. “Do you have a blueprint for it?”

It only took me a moment to dig out a copy of the blueprint and give it to Crash Cart.

“Now just plug her back in. Oh and might want to close your eyes this time. I’m going to download the code and see if I can make some adjustments while you’re out.” Crash Cart explained before sighing. “And try not to come back in more pieces than you’re leaving in.”

I snorted at that. “I’ll try to.”

Taking Crash Cart’s advice I closed my eyes right as I made the connection. Thankfully the E.F.S. didn’t show up behind my eyelids. Regardless, I didn’t want to risk anything so I sat on my rump for the few minutes it took Crash Cart to download everything.

“Okay, you can unplug the Pipbuck Zero. I’ll get to work on this as I keep an eye on the others here.” Crash Cart said. “You get going, hopefully, you’ll find something useful.”

With a nod, I stood up and removed the connecting wires from the terminal to my Pipbuck. I briefly saw a bunch of symbols in my sight before a no-connection message appeared then winked out.

“Are you two good to go?” I asked my companions for this excursion.

“More than you are,” Riptide replied, pulling on one of the straps of my barding with her magic. Sil simply nodded as she pulled on her battlesaddle. I moved to help her secure the straps.

With preparations out of the way and a wave goodbye to Cart, we left the building.

Outside, I got to see how Four Corners was doing for the first time in days. The town was noticeably worse than it had been when we arrived; segments of the wall had been patched with rubble and miasma still hung in the air every so slightly, leaving the taste of blood in my mouth. Looking around I could see a great deal of barrel fires lit in what I imagined was an attempt to burn away the remaining Miasma, or at least dilute it.

The clouds overhead were dark and heavy with moisture, wisps draping down from them to the west. Rain was well on its way. The upside was that we would hopefully be underground or at least in some kind of shelter within the hour.

We followed the street out through the south gate. Outside the gate, we saw teams of ponies digging ditches, building pits, and setting traps. Others were harvesting the corpses of the vipers. Work never stops after an attack, I knew that much from Saint Clover.

The path we took south swiftly deviated from how we had come into the city. We did end up having to make our way through the remains of a collapsed overpass for a freeway as we headed southwest.

“Okay, right turn here,” I said while I put the map away. “Then we stay on this street until we hit the industrial area.”

“It’s actually a nice walk out here,” Riptide said looking to our south where the land looked a fair bit less developed. Sickly, windswept fields, possibly wheat or hay, rippled with the breeze, long left to their own devices.

“That it is, it does feel nice to be walking like this again,” I replied with a smile. “That and I needed to see something other than canvas and concrete. I was getting close to wanting to chew on that mattress.”

“You weren’t even bedridden and you were going that mad. That’s worrying.” Riptide teased.

“Not enough books,” I replied dryly.

Riptide shook her head and giggled more before turning her gaze to the sky.

“She’s not joking. She’s quite the fiend for books.” Sil added with a smirk. “We probably should have also brought a cart and stuffed you in it. Would have also made it easier to carry stuff back with no worries of leaving you behind if we had to make a run for it.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I didn’t think about that. Hopefully, we can scavenge somethin’ around the bunker. Worst case there are plenty of broken-down carriages so we can make something out of that. It’ll just take a while.”

“Hey, Moony, thank you by the way,” Riptide said.

“For what?” I asked. I was guessing it was for grabbing her when the staircase collapsed. We hadn’t really talked about that night yet.

“For protecting me, even though it meant you got hurt,” Riptide replied.

“It’s instinct I guess. Or training. A mix of the two really.” I answered. “I saw what was about to happen, knew my limits, and did what I could to protect who I could. I made a choice to protect those I loved and do what I could to survive myself. It’s what we’re meant to do; help when we can, be it for a stranger or our special someones.”

Riptide shook her head again, this time with a smile on her muzzle. “I wish I had the foresight to have done the same in return. I was too focused on the danger of that monster.”

“As you should have been. If you hadn’t it would have gone for us when we hit the ground.” Sil replied in turn. “I couldn’t get a clear shot and ended up having to act as a rear guard instead. Times like that make me wish that I had a horn like you two.”

Riptide nodded before she sighed. “Sometimes I just feel like I’m a fifth wheel on this whole thing, what with the four of you being so much more skilled at everything.” She idly held my old revolver in her magic and spun the cylinder before returning it to her holster.

“Well if the Steel Rangers didn’t take everything there’s a chance we can get a nice upgrade in firepower for you,” I replied, trying to cheer her up. “Of course, they could have equally just left the stuff they thought wasn’t that useful. Still whatever is leftover is likely better than what we have given their… judicious application of firepower.”

“I’m guessing that’s sarcasm,” Riptide replied, tapping her chin as we trotted along.

“Oh, it is. The standard loadout for a Steel Ranger tends to be power armor, missile launcher, and an autocannon.” Sil explained with a laugh. “Or a heavy machine gun and grenade launcher. They will use a balefire egg to take out a bloatfly. To say they don’t know what overkill is would be an understatement.”

“Then there is a chance they left something behind for us to take,” Riptide said excitedly, beaming even. “They probably hoarded like a dragon with as much ammo and ordinance as they could.”

That was the first time I had seen her take an interest in weapons beyond self-preservation. Maybe this was her actual personality finally breaking through.

“Yeah, something like that.” I giggled. “Part of why I wanted to do this in the first place; to get Four Corners some kind of turrets or land mines to deal with the Vipers.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Riptide chortled before she broke out into a canter.

“Wait! Shit.” I tried to break into a run and let out a cry of pain at trying to keep up with Riptide. Sil politely kept up with me while Riptide kept several lengths ahead of us.

“Well, it’s nice to see her full of energy.” Sil giggled. “When we head back, you’re sitting in a carriage.”

“I can’t disagree with that.” I groaned. “I’m going to need more physical therapy before I can keep up with her.”

“That’s the right way to look at it.” Sil smiled, turning her head to look ahead of us. “I think that’s our stop up ahead.”

She was right. We had finally entered the industrial part of town just as a light drizzle started. It wasn’t filled with endless massive factories like I expected but modest brick buildings with few windows. Nondescript names adorned signage and most lots contained ruined cargo trailers and silos. It was clear a lot of different types of industry called this region home.

It only took a couple of minutes to find K&E Excavations.

The gates for K&E Excavations were left wide open. The fence around the property was made of rusting metal plates so we couldn’t see in. With a nod to Riptide, who was still ahead of us we crept up to the entrance and looked in to see a dirt-filled work yard. Sitting in the lot were a few pre-war vehicles caked in flaking paint and rust. I also noted that there were vehicle tracks from after the war, notably fresher than the wartime tracks I had to compare them to. These were flanked by heavyset hoof prints of dozens of ponies. It was an easy bet that these belonged to the Steel Rangers when they left and took what they could so we ‘simple wastelanders’ couldn’t have anything.

I looked over the yard, motioning everypony to stay put as I checked for mines or passive traps as well as straining my ears to listen for turrets and other active threats. Nothing caught my eye and only the wind and the light patter of raindrops greeted my ears. With that I slipped through the entrance and into the yard itself, giving the signal to follow along.

An office building sat at the other end, its windows long blown out and the main doorway devoid of even its frame. It would have housed a dozen ponies at the most back in the day. As we rounded the back of the worksite I noticed something that had been obstructed by the bulk of the building: a berm and within it a cave with a shallow grade.

“This must be it. An underground bunker hidden under a construction site.” I stated, a note of excitement and amusement escaping me. I trotted ahead of the rest and lit up the cave with my Pipbuck.

What greeted us was a wall of rocks. I grunted and stared up at the concrete ceiling. This was no collapse, the Steel Rangers had just buried the entrance under rubble.

“Really?! They thought this would stop anyone? Come on, let’s get these rocks out of the way.” I shouted in annoyance, shaking my head and muttering under my breath. “Fuckers thought this would stop anyone?”

“Um, okay. Are you certain this is safe to move?” Riptide asked as she examined the pile of rocks that blocked our path. Her yellow magic mixed with my green, illuminating the rocks we had begun to move.

“Moonlight’s right. We wouldn’t have been able to even get down here if it wasn’t safe to move these rocks.” Sil pointed out, confirming my observations. “Plus given it is a Steel Ranger facility they’ve built it like a Stable meaning it was meant to survive a near miss of a balefire bomb. The rocks were probably a deterrent for outsiders rather than making it impossible to get out.”

I had hoped that if we carved a path down the middle we could avoid having to move everything but in the end, we had to move half of the rocks. This was a blessing in disguise as it let me make a berm to keep the now-gathering rainwater away from the uncovered entrance.

The door itself was unlike the drawn images I have seen of Stable doors, reminding me more of a large bank vault; rectangular, possibly pressurized, and with no actual way to interact with it. Except for the terminal to the side, parts of which were accessible from the outside. Ah, vulnerabilities.

Powering on the terminal, I was greeted with the Stable-Tec symbol followed by a second one which I guessed belonged to the Steel Ranger’s. Then the terminal sat idle. I remembered reading that some terminals took a while to fully boot before they let you work with them so I let it sit for a minute. When nothing happened, I pulled out the connector cables and interfaced it to my Pipbuck Zero. The familiar Stable-Tec debugging interface popped up and I grinned. Those lovely vulnerabilities sure were useful.

Yay for standardized technology.

It took a few minutes to slice my way through the various layers of protocols the Steel Rangers had left behind to keep the door locked. Most required a simple level of knowledge on working with a terminal, figuring out which system was talking to one another and exploiting it. Others had required some pre-war history knowledge.

All in all, it took half an hour to crack open the door. Thankfully Sil was a boon for her ability to catch things that I had missed and spotting digital traps left by the scribes of the Steel Rangers.

I let Sil do the honors of pressing the button to open the door, the gesture of letting a zebra crack open a Steel Ranger bunker felt oddly nice. The door slowly swung open, stopping when it jammed partway against the rocks we had moved. That was going to give us less room to maneuver when it came time to leave with our spoils but that was a problem for later when we knew how much loot we had.

Once inside we sealed the door behind us so the bunker wouldn’t be flooded. We looked at each other determinedly; we were now sealed in with whatever was left behind by the Steel Rangers.

Now that my Pipbuck Zero was registered in the system as whatever the highest ranking the Steel Rangers had. So we should have free reign of the bunker, in theory. Honestly, I just gave myself full admin privileges to their system and registered all of us as friendlies to the internal security systems so none of them should turn hostile.

However, this would prove most humorous if we encountered anyone in there as I’ll pop up as one of their leaders. They probably never thought to change any of the encryption they use because of the “they’re just wastelanders, they couldn’t ever pose a threat to us” mindset. Of course, it will last all of two seconds before we either get shot or taken prisoner, though two seconds is better than zero.

The entrance hall we were in was, well, nothing special. It was spartan and the only thing of note was some kind of array that clicked as we went through it. I guessed it was some kind of scanner. Moving further we found an elevator that would take us further underground. It seemed to be running on some form of emergency power, which made sense if the Rangers ever planned to return.

“Hope you don’t have issues with this,” I said to Riptide as we entered the decidedly cramped elevator and selected the first button-down.

“Claustrophobia? No, thankfully.” Riptide replied, letting out a breath she probably didn’t know she was holding in as the elevator rumbled down.

“Good, because while I may have cracked the door and given us root access to the whole facility, who knows what the Steel Rangers left as a surprise for unwanted guests,” I warned, hoping to reassure Riptide and Sil.

“That’s fair,” Riptide replied with a sigh. “I didn’t know you had full access but I was prepared to be on our hooftips.” She paused as the elevator stopped, doors slowly hissing open. “Did you happen to get, like, a map or something?”

“Uh, no?” I answered. I brought up my Pipbuck to check anyway and got a rendition of the floor we were on now. “Nevermind I guess I did. No labels for anything but it's fully mapped out.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing.” Sil offered as she swept forward into the dark corridor to clear the way ahead of us.

“Well, dang.” Riptide frowned.

“Hold on, let me correct that. There’s one label now, the elevator, so I think my Pipbuck is updating as we go along.” I explained as we slowly moved after Sil.

“Okay, that’s something. I guess it's a blueprint and not what ponies labeled things while living here.” Riptide sighed. “Ideas?”

There was a moment of silence as we passed what was a security room, though now it was more of a bunker given its window was a gunport.

“Well, first let’s finish this floor,” I explained as I waved my foreleg-mounted light around. “From what I’m seeing this floor isn’t much more than a security choke point. It’s not even the ‘first floor’ so to speak.”

“Once we get down a level let's start looking for plaques and a light switch, maybe even some floor plans.” Sil continued for me as we came up to the next elevator. “I don’t believe for a moment they wouldn’t have maps inside for themselves. They weren’t always in power armor, and I don’t think the steel heads had Pipbucks.”

Once down a floor, we kept together; Riptide took up the rear, Sil the middle, and I was in front. Considering the two horn heads of the group were on either end to light things up, I honestly should have given the Pipbuck Zero to Sil so she had her own source of light. I just didn’t want to risk undoing what work we had done to register me on the internal friend or foe systems by swapping the Pipbuck.

After much annoyance and minutes of fumbling around, we finally found a service room and flipped on the fuses. We breathed a sigh of relief at the hum of electric lights as backup power came online. It wasn’t much but at least the entire floor was dimly lit instead of pitch black. It had also been a while but I was comforted by the familiar sounds of the HVAC system as it started thrumming all around us. Riptide though looked more than unsettled by the noises.

“This is how it should sound, Riptide,” Sil said comfortingly to Riptide, patting her on the side.

“Saint Clover wasn’t this loud,” Riptide grumbled. “I’m just more used to… well, what passes for nature anymore.”

I gave her a nod and moved in to hug her. I could understand how overwhelming the difference in the noise could be due to her short stint in Saint Clover. Riptide took a few calming breaths before steeling herself and we were on the move again.

The layout of the bunker was like that of a tree with the elevator shaft as the central trunk. The floor we were on was decently sized and seemed to be focused on a mix of administration and habitation, along with a solitary firing range.

We concluded our fruitless search and went down to the next floor. Floor two was far more interesting. There was an abandoned hydroponics section and a great deal more living space. While it was just as spartan, it was much less cramped than what was upstairs. This space seemed more suited for actually living in, maybe even raising foals judging by some of the rooms we passed and what remained of classrooms. Steel Rangers had to reproduce somehow.

The third floor held more administrative, medical, and physical training facilities. This seemed more of a shared space between the more domicile space of the second and the militaristic first floor with little else of note aside from its overall floor size.

The fourth floor was noticeably smaller than the previous two. It was instead a mix of varying manufacturing facilities; a mill and a foundry among other industrial features, most of which looked like it was automated and optimized for the compact space. There were also feeds coming from somewhere below, likely to sustain the industry we saw.

“It really is like a tree,” I said to myself as I brought up the map again. I mixed some of my own magic with the Pipbuck Zero’s mapping system, giving a rendition that the other two could see, this time as a three-dimensional object. This wasn’t intended behavior but apparently, the automapper also took into consideration room height. It must have used sound in some fashion, probably infrasound since I never heard it going off, and also because I didn’t remember any light emitter beyond the little screen that would account for this.

“Oh wow, look, the elevators go deeper! Are those caves?” Riptide asked, as she poked the map.

“Must be where they got their materials. I can see why they didn’t blow the place.” I replied half in awe. “I doubt we’d be able to get anything out of them. They probably mined it themselves. Would have made great strength training.”

“Yeah, well let’s check the last floor before we go down to the caves,” Sil suggested. “See if maybe that’s where the armory is.”

“Sounds good. Hmm, maybe the caves were a backup defense point.” I pondered, tapping a hoof. “It would make one hell of a choke point and who knows what they could have stashed down there too.”

“After we get done with the rest of the floors.” Sil nodded, her curiosity clearly piqued.

The fifth floor was split into two wings where we found what remained of storage. It was also unfortunately more sporadically lit than the other floors as a result. There seemed to be two storage rooms per wing, each labeled simply with a number. Peeking into a random one, I found that it was still full of crates, probably stuffed to the gills before the Rangers fucked off for Princesses knew where.

“Guess they decided to not take everything with them,” I remarked, then turned to Sil. “Let’s look around for a terminal and see if we can’t get a log of what is in these. I’ll try to find some kind of labeling system on them.”

“One thing consistent about pre-war groups is how they loved to keep logs on everything.” Sil giggled. “Also from the looks of it, we probably passed the cleaned-out armory on the first floor. Looks like we’re getting scraps tonight.”

“Yeah, seems that way but that’s fine,” I replied with a shrug. Then, against my previous fears, I decided to give Sil my Pipbuck. “It’s probably better that we split up to cover more ground. Use this to check on the other rooms while I check this one.”

“Will do, can’t wait until we can stop trading this one around,” Sil said, giving me a smirk before she headed off.

Riptide nodded in agreement as well and left to check the other rooms, leaving me lifting boxes and checking them for obvious labels.

It wasn’t until the fifth box that I realized they were indeed labeled. It was just a bunch of faded numbers and letters branded on them but it was something. Curiosity overtook me and I pried open a crate, finding almost a full crate of pre-war food, mostly military rations in sealed tins. I set the crate aside and took one from another stack, pulling it open in turn. It was the same, more rations.

“Food stock room,” I muttered to myself, taking a few days’ worth of rations for us. It wasn’t like the Steel Rangers would miss them.

Leaving the room I took out some chalk and wrote ‘Food Storage’ on the wall next to the already existing ‘Storage Room 4’. With that done I decided to check in on the other two.

The floor wasn’t that large on the layout, but the Steel Rangers had expanded each room over time compared to the original blueprint, each storeroom was now rather tall and deep. Humorously I seemed to have stumbled upon the one room neither mare had gotten to yet.

Which of course contained a terminal. Unfortunately, said terminal needed time to turn on so I labeled the room as ‘Terminal’ before I moved on. Storage Room 2 wasn’t empty and contained a very busy Sil using my Pipbuck light to peruse the room’s contents. Oddly the Steel Rangers had decided to strip the light fixtures out for this room as well. Part of me was impressed, and the other was annoyed.

“Hey Sil, when you finish here there’s a room with a terminal warming up,” I said, leaning in to peek over her shoulder. “The room will have some chalk on the outside labeled ‘Terminal’ so it shouldn't be too hard to find. I’m going to find Riptide and see how she’s doing.”

“Sure why not? All I’m finding here is some spare parts for... well I’m not certain honestly.” Sil replied with a shake of her mane. “I would guess power armor or vehicles? Anyway don’t get lost.”

“Little hard to do on this floor but I’ll try not to.” I snorted in reply.

I rationalized that Riptide was in Storage Room 3 because I remember the door hadn’t been open when I came past earlier so she must’ve found a way in. I poked my head into the room, gazed at the crates before me, and cursed. The place was a veritable maze of crates. While the boxes weren’t piled all the way to the cavernous ceiling, they were piled high enough that I wouldn’t be able to spot Riptide over them. I decided to climb to the top of the boxes instead, not wanting to deal with a box-style hedge maze.

“The great crate maze of the Steel Rangers,” I muttered to myself. I used my magic to help reduce my weight for a moment as I climbed the first set of crates. Once on top, I carefully hopped over a gap between the walls of boxes.

To my relief, the crates didn’t shatter when taking my full weight. As I walked the walls of the maze, I kept an eye out for any signs of Riptide like her horn glow or a pair of distinctive ears. Luck however was not in my favor. Absent-mindedly, I failed to notice a gap between crates and tumbled down onto my bruised chest. I let out a groan and lay there for a minute. Just another injury and my stomach would just take that bit longer to heal. It was roughly how this week was shaping up to be.

After a bit of self-pity, I picked myself back up with the aid of magic, berating myself mentally to watch my step. Misfortune continued to confound my progress when the next crate I hopped onto failed to support me and I ended up inside said crate. I was eternally thankful for my barding covering most of my soft tissues and the site of my impalement, even if the experience brought about a flash of panic at the memory of the stairwell collapsing under.

With a thought, I lit up the inside of the box to find machine parts yet again. I let out a laugh.

“Well, okay. I’ll need to sort these parts to see if any of these are useful.” I said to myself as I did my best to stand amidst the bits of machinery and caved-in crate cover. Using my magic, I moved both myself and the entire crate to the floor so I could properly inspect it.

With the lack of pressure to rush off somewhere else, I took my time to pick through the packaged parts I had crashed into. There was a possibility that somewhere among these crates there were parts for turrets. Then again, maybe they were in the room Sil was in or nowhere at all. Either way, this being a Steel Ranger bunker there was some benefit in putting some effort into combing these since they looked moderately important.

I got startled by a sudden noise and spun to face it only to see Riptide lowering her gun from around the corner.

“Oh good. It’s just you, Moonlight.” Riptide sighed as she trotted from around the box tower. It was nice to see she knew to use cover when approaching an unknown situation.

“Yeah, sorry. I was walking on the crates and this one collapsed on me.” I informed Riptide, gesturing to the broken cover. “I decided to look through it. It seems to be parts for some kind of specialized machinery. Nothing like what I’m looking for but it's a start.”

“I see, well that’s good news. Haven’t found a terminal here though,” Riptide replied. “I don’t know how many times I got turned around but it’s one too many.” She raised an eyebrow. “Why were you walking on top of the boxes?”

“Well, to have a better chance of catching a glimpse of your ears or horn.” I chuckled sheepishly as I rubbed the back of my head, all while my sore body reminded me of how foolish the choice ended up being. “As for a terminal, I found one and Sil should be working on it by now. She still has my Pipbuck before you ask.” I raised my left foreleg for emphasis.

“I was going to ask if you lost it in the box but good to know.” Riptide giggled and ruffled my mane. “Given how beat up you are, try not to take more risky paths? I don’t know how much more bruising your body can handle.”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m already feeling it. Really where I…” I sighed. “Well, whatever. It isn’t bleeding again so we’re still good for now.”

“Remind me to strap you down when we get back to Four Corners.” Riptide sighed as she shook her head in disappointment. “I don’t want you getting even more hurt before we get going again.”

We quickly retreated from the storage room which I helpfully marked as “Parts?” and headed for the room where I had found the terminal. Sil was already hard at work, well on her way through cracking through it. Hopefully, this meant I could take the Pipbuck back when we moved on to another floor.

“Hey, you two. Well, the terminal has logs for what went in and out of each storeroom.” Sill stated, eyes glued on the glowing monitor as she tapped away. “No personal data though which surprised me a little. I guess the Steel Rangers wanted to leave as few clues behind as possible so nopony could track them down.”

I nodded attentively and milled through the voluminous data with Sil while Riptide levitated down a nearby crate and opened it, sifting through its contents. Then Riptide went on to another, and another, and another as I slowly felt my will to go on drain out of me. My face met the desk the terminal was on as time went on, my ears flattering. Sil patted my mane as she sat beside me and I let out a snort of boredom, the boring nature of the data having defeated me.

“Oh, hey! I found some guns!” Riptide exclaimed in a singsong voice. My ears stood at attention at the sound of a gun cocking.

I immediately stood up and started to make my way to Riptide only to fall forward as my hindlegs decided to stay asleep. I let out a small whine of annoyance. To make things worse, Sil pushed back from the desk at that exact moment, the wheels of the chair rolling over my tail and pinning me in place. I was thankful that pony tails were mostly hair but it didn’t get any less painful to have the tail hairs tugged sharply.

Sil too had her own misfortune to contend with. She hadn’t accounted for the fact that her chair was a swivel chair and was currently spinning uncontrollably in place. I took a moment to put myself together before grabbing both her and the chair in my magic to stop the spin. Sil stumbled off of it, looking more than a little dazed as she rubbed her right foreleg where she had hit the desk trying to stop herself, before unceremoniously falling flat on the floor. The noise of my grunt of pain and Sil’s squeak got Riptide’s attention and she trotted over to inspect us.

“You two having fun over there?” Riptide snorted.

“Yes, we didn’t find anything interesting on the terminal,” I answered. “Plus you looked so happy going through those boxes that we decided to have a little fun ourselves.”

Sil decided to make the bad choice of putting a hoof on my lower back to help her stand. Not only was this painful to me but I wasn’t the most solid surface on account of my squirming and we ended up becoming entangled.

“Sil, how about we just stop and lay here for a minute,” I added with a wince of pain.

“Sure, I’m a bit dizzy anyway,” Sil replied, deciding to wisely switch to hugging me. “Holding onto something I know isn’t going to move is probably for the best.”

Riptide blew raspberries at us before setting a rifle down in front of me to look over. It was of an uncommon make and even at first glance I could see why the Steel Rangers had left them behind; it was a revolver rifle. Earth Ponies and Pegasi preferred belt and magazine-fed weapons.

“There are more revolvers, rifles, and pistols,” Riptide added as I looked over the rifle.

Scooping the rifle up in my magic I popped the cylinder out to see what type of ammo it took. Stamped on the side of the barrel was forty-four caliber. Not that great for long-range, maybe one hundred meters, but with a bit of work I probably could swap the barrel out and rebore the cylinder for a better-equipped caliber for longer ranges.

I cycled the rifle, noting how smooth the action felt even in my magic. The Steel Rangers had left it serviced and in good condition. I looked up to see Riptide setting a crate likely containing the rest of the firearms down in front of me. A faded label declared ‘Ironshod Firearms Revolving Rifle’, one of their earlier products.

Further investigation on the rifle confirmed it via a stamp denoting it as an IF-5 model. Digging further into the crate, we also unearthed nice, regular IF-18 revolvers, which were cut-down successors to the IF-5 using .44 revolver ammunition. Packaged alongside them was a small box of speed loaders.

“Hey, Riptide, you can have my rifle,” I suggested as I levitated my 5.56 rifle over to her, along with the spare magazines and ammo. “It’s got a longer range than these do while also being magazine-fed so no having to fiddle with individual rounds.” I paused and blushed. “I’m a sucker for revolvers and while these have a shorter range the round is good against fleshy things.”

“Well, I’m happy to be done with just relying on the .38s.” Riptide offered and picked up one of the IF-18s in her magic. “How about I take one of the pistol revolvers as well? They look like they take the same ammo which would make restocking easier.”

“Sure, take one, these seem to be in prime condition. What we need now is to find ammo.” I said, tapping my chin thoughtfully.

I went back to the terminal and plugged my Pipbuck, now firmly back onto my foreleg, into it and reviewed the extra options that popped up. I quickly did a word search for ammo and started sifting through the results looking for any matching results, hoping to find any leftover boxes of ammunition.

“I’ll keep looking through the crates, I guess.” Riptide giggled as I focused on the terminal, eyes scanning back and forth over the voluminous data.

“I’ve looked at that terminal long enough so I’ll give you a hoof with that,” Sil replied as she moved to help with the crates. “Maybe we can find something a bit better than this shotgun for my battle saddle.”

It took a few hours but Riptide and Sil managed to dig up a valuable find: a few crates with simple to set up turrets. We moved these to the hallway so we could easily drag them into the elevator later. We also stumbled upon ammo for the revolvers, though the crate they were in had been packed sideways which resulted in many loose rounds spilling out around us. We were practically swimming in ammo! I let out a giggle and hugged Riptide who looked confused as I kissed her.

“Sorry, I'm just happy to have a major break.” I giggled, pulling a .44 round out of the Riptide’s collar. “Come on, let's pack this up, and remember to fill up your speed loaders first.”

It took us a while to clean up the loose ammo while also filling our bags with what we could, stuffing the excess back into the crate, and resealing it. Yet another crate to take back with us to either sell or donate since the turrets used a different kind of ammunition.

I patted the crate. I had seen what a .44 round could do and while arguably a 5.56 was better, the ability to break bones was a nice bonus. I couldn’t help but giggle again thinking about my brand new revolver rifle. More so against the stubborn hides of Vipers.

Riptide for her part seemed to find my state of excitement as a source of amusement. Unlike Sil, who was used to and equally amused by my states of excitement upon finding new ‘toys’. Sil, though, shared my love of machines and books and while she wasn’t as thrilled as I was about every book, she did enjoy the odd engineering manual or two.

We moved back to the elevators with our spoils. I had been questioning why the place relied on just a single elevator shaft and soon found that it didn’t; the upper floors had one elevator shaft supporting four elevators, but on this floor, a spacious cargo elevator joined the regular ones. We walked into it and pressed the button for the next floor down. My mind mentally labeled it as “Roots” given what we had seen on the map.

The car descended slowly, slow enough that all we had to go on was the whining of the wheels as proof we were moving. The minutes dragged on before the doors opened again. At first, there was nothing, but then in the dimness, our eyes caught glimmers of lights. We readied our weapons, widened our stances, and prepared to send the car back up at the first sign of trouble.

But nothing happened, nothing moved. All we heard was our own strained breathing and the drip of water. The heat and humidity down here were terrible, the car having insulated us from the brunt of it on the descent. I had not expected that going deeper into the earth meant that it would get warmer and wetter.

After a minute of inactivity, I cast a light orb spell and floated it into the cavern.

It was then that we noticed the surrounding area was littered with robots. I gasped and almost fired out of instinct. What stopped me was the fact that none had moved nor made any noise. We stared at each other in shock before moving to inspect them. It didn’t take long for us to find that most of them were partially disassembled.

“This is… odd,” I admitted, holstering my weapons. “A robotic workforce ... oh of course! Steel Rangers, as prideful as ever.” I faced Riptide and sighed. “I doubt they would dirty their hooves digging. Supposedly they barely even lift a hoof to maintain their own equipment, instead putting that duty on ‘lower members’ of their order.”

“Sounds like they’re a bunch of jerks,” Riptide replied as she tapped one of the roboponies. It fell over with a loud clatter that made all of us stop and stand still, listening for something to awaken from its slumber. When nothing came of Riptide’s act of wanton destruction we breathed a collective sigh of relief.

“That’s putting it lightly,” Sil replied before she poked her head inside the barrel of a robopony.

“I’m hearing nothing but the dripping of water so I think we’re in the clear,” I reassured Riptide. “You keep an eye on things while Sil and I poke around in these robots. See if there’s anything left worth taking.”

Riptide lit her horn to look around while Sil and I focused on dismantling the stripped-down robot. Unfortunately, the Steel Rangers didn’t take with them the grease, rust, and grime on the damn things so I found myself wiping my hooves often. The other bit of bad news was that the valuable robopony brains were gone.

However, there was an upside. For whatever reason, most of the talismans were still intact which meant proper turrets for Four Corners once we handed them what we could salvage. They would have more than just those quick set-up turrets we had found.

“Anything good?” Riptide asked as I put the talismans in my saddlebags.

“Yep, exactly what we want, talismans for making turrets,” Sil explained. I sighed looking around at the fleet of roboponies.

“Should we?” I asked, sweeping a foreleg out.

“What, all of them?” Sil asked in return. “How late is it?”

“We’ve been down here long enough that it’s, uh.” I paused and summoned the clock readout. “Bit after five in the afternoon now so we’ll end up staying the night if we do. Should be safe enough, I locked the big door once we got inside. Didn’t want any unwelcome visitors.”

“I guess that works. Keeps anypony from following us in and keeps anything down here, well, down here.” Riptide pondered. “Also there were some nice beds in the hab block we passed.”

“Guess that settles it then. Sorry if this gets a bit boring.” Sil apologized as I began getting to work. All that maintenance training at Saint Clover was going to pay off now.

“Hey, it’s more time we get to spend together without fearing for our lives or being crammed in a tiny carriage.” Riptide teased.

“You’re not wrong.” I laughed. “It’s a nice change of pace to just be doing something and not worry about something trying to kill us.”

With that I turned my focus to scavenging as many robots as I could stomach, stripping down and removing what useful parts were left over. In an attempt to keep busy, Riptide helped Sil and me with sorting and storing the parts into spare crates.

As I had originally thought, it took hours to make a dent in the fleet of roboponies. Sil had more drive than I did and I eventually relegated myself to being her spare hooves as we worked through the evening.

Level up! Welcome to Level 4! Your rough times and exposure to Hydra blood have changed you! No scales, yet, but your hide is tougher than most ponies’! Not to words though, just to things trying to kill you. Sorry, your emotions are still just as vulnerable as before. Enjoy the extra five Damage Threshold, even when out of your barding!