I was honestly at a loss for what to do right now.

My map called this area the Chateau. It was made up of buildings lining the street that looked like nopony had lived in them for years. It was creepy to say the least, I kept my eye on my EFS at all times out of fear.

The Pink Cloud, how was it even here? The old Empire had not intended to use it anywhere else in Equestria. It showing up here out of the blue didn’t make sense. There had to be something more to this, and it only added to the mystery of the Royale.

Then there was the treasure itself. The FRA had lost a lot of money and infrastructure in the war with the Legion back home. Even a small fortune would help with trade and stabilization of the nation.

But that was assuming I could get out of here with my life, let alone with treasure. I needed to get out of this place, but walking out was just asking for trouble right now.

So for now I was going to have to do what Quasar said. I hated that I didn’t have any other options right now. For now I had to find this Alicorn that Quasar had mentioned was in the Police Station.

I took a deep breath as I heard a sound ahead of me. I came around a corner and that’s when I saw the first of the locals. They were dressed in odd black clothing with a gas mask covering their face.

I hadn’t ever seen anything like that before. I ducked behind a column and checked my EFS again, whatever that thing was it was hostile. I checked my bags, I had enough ammo to take it out, but I didn’t like dealing with this right now.

“Okay Sani, it’s just a creepy pony, you don’t have any reason to be scared,” I said to myself in an attempt to reassure myself. It wasn’t very helpful, but it made me feel a little better. “You’ve dealt with way worse. Just take it out quickly and you’ll be fine.”

I adjusted the odd rifle and looked back at the creepy pony. At least they hadn’t noticed me yet. I swung the rifle around and aimed for the pony’s barrel.

“Spirits guide my aim and keep it true…” I prayed quietly as I pulled the trigger on the rifle. An energy bolt cracked through the air as it flew into the odd pony’s body and made contact with a crackle.

The ghastly pony snapped up and looked right at me with an unnatural sound. It lumbered towards me with a long spear levitated up and spun it around. I fired another shot at. It paused a moment before starting towards me again. The shot hadn’t even slowed it down, it wasn’t normal.

“By the spirits... what are you?” I screamed as I backed away. I fired several more shots into the pony. Each shot only seemed to make it angry as it got closer to me.

I fired one last shot into the pony as it got close to me. I was ready to do hoof to hoof when the creature finally fell onto the ground in front of me. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I spotted the strange spear it had been carrying and picked it up.

It was an odd design to be sure. It looked like a broom handle with odd knives taped to it like a spearhead. It was a clever design really, I had to give these odd ponies that. I slid the spear onto my back and checked my inventory screen. It was called a Knife Spear, not very imaginative but it did the trick.

“Okay, now let’s see here…” I said as I started walking again. But before I could go five feet I heard a sound behind me.

I turned to see the strange pony getting to its hooves once more. My eyes went wide in shock at that as it headed towards me again. Quickly I drew out the knife spear and gripped it in my hooves as it got closer.

I hadn’t wielded a spear in years, but it didn’t require much knowledge of how to use it. I thrust it forward into the pony and caught it in the neck. I was shocked by how easily it went down this time. Probably this time it had been weakened enough.

But it was going to get up again, that much I was sure of. It wasn’t natural, so there was no point in holding back. I stabbed the spear into its neck, cutting off its head as I fell back onto my flank breathing heavily.

“What are you,” I said out loud to myself or whatever spirits resided in this Hell. That’s when I saw it, there was a pink mist coming out of its neck wound. I screamed and backed away quickly, dragging the spear with me.

I should have known. There was only one thing that could live in this kind of place.

“Equus Exspiravit…” I said quietly as I stared at it. We called them Ghost Ponies, but those in Equestria gave them another name.

Canterlot Ghouls. They were the only things that could live in this city of the dead.

I breathed heavily as I watched the corpse of the Ghoul for a long moment. Finally I was convinced it was dead as I got to my hooves and slid my spear back into the saddle.

I started walking again in silence. I knew how to kill one of these things, and it would be better off dead anyway. But still I was scared. This city, this Royale was a nightmare that I would need to escape somehow.

I made my way towards the police station again. I was about to turn again, but I saw something strange. There was a hoof mark against the wall painted in white. I glanced around and walked towards it, it was next to an old suitcase and I opened it carefully.

Inside the suitcase was a revolver, food, water, healing potions, and several boxes of ammunition. I put it in my bags and looked around it to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I found an odd note and opened it up out of curiosity.

“To whoever finds this,

I can only believe that you got dragged into this Hell by the same forces that brought me here. I set these caches up around the Chateau to help me if I ever needed them. I guess you found it first. Take what you need, I can always get more, but replace it if you can.

Do not trust Father Quasar. He knows very little about this place. I know the secrets of the Royale and what is waiting for us at the bottom. Don’t believe a false prophet who promises gold. Not all that glitters is gold and not all that is gold glitters.

Getting out of this Hell is our priority now. I hope to see you around whoever you are.

V.K.”

I put away the supplies, I had none of my own anymore so I needed them. I started back towards the police station and found it after a moment. I opened the door quietly and went inside.

00000

I silently entered the police station wishing that I had my stealth cloak. I covered my ears for a moment when my collar started beeping. Luckily the source was easy to find, an old radio was activated and I shut it off with a sigh of relief as the beeping ceased.

I looked ahead of me and into a holding cell. Seated against the wall was a pony… but this wasn’t a normal pony. She was a tall dark green Alicorn dressed in armor with a collar around her neck. She was hunched over muttering to herself about something.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to get her attention. “I was sent here by a Father Quasar. I’m guessing you’re the Alicorn I’m here to find.”

“Oh yes yes, that would be us.” The Alicorn said, her gaze shifting upwards and meeting mine. “What can we do you for dearie?”

“He told me to find you and two others in order to get into the Casino,” I replied. “I didn’t exactly expect to find you like this though. Are you stuck in there?”

“Oh not at all! We put ourselves in here.” The alicorn said with a laugh. “We bet you’re wondering why now, right?”

“Yeah, I kinda am,” I said as I eyed her for a moment. This Alicorn was a bit weird, but then again I hadn’t actually met many Alicorns. Maybe this was actually normal for them and the ones I had met were the weird ones. “Why would you put yourself into a prison cell?”

“To protect the others of course!” She said cheerily “You see, not all of us agree on things, and some of us have problems with self-control and not getting into trouble, locking ourselves in here was the best thing we could do, We hid the key, the others do not know where it is.”

“The others, do you mean the others in the Chateau?” I asked. “Have you met any other ponies in here?”

“Now come to think of it we don’t think we have.” She said, lightly tapping at her chin with a hoof. “Come to think of it you’re the only other pony we’ve seen, been quite lonely here dontcha know.”

“Uh, I’m a Zebra technically, or did they erase my stripes…” I commented but looked back at her. “Okay, so if you haven’t seen anypony else, who are you keeping the key from?”

“Us!” she said, giggling excitedly to herself and clapping her hooves together.

“You’re… hiding the key from yourself… but you know where the key is…” I said as I rubbed my forehead a little. “That doesn’t make any sense. Or, do you have short term memory loss or something?”

“You could call it that, though it’s more like the others aren’t always in charge,” She said, smiling and nodding at me. “Though, I suppose seeing is believing huh? Don’t worry though, you’ll meet them in due time!”

“Okay, well the creepy hologram pony said to get you,” I replied as I eyed her for a moment. “Something tells me you’re not just going to give me the key though. I mean, that would be way too simple for this kind of place…”

“Oh no, we’ll tell you, no need to worry your pretty little head over it dearie,” she said, standing from where she had been standing and coming closer to me. “Just gotta promise us that you don’t tell them, it’s a really good hiding place as long as they don’t find out.”

“Okay, I won’t tell them, whoever they are,” I said with a nod. This was getting weird, but I did hear about Alicorns from the Unity having some sort of Hive Mind years ago. Maybe this was related to that with everything that was going on. “Would it help if I swore to the Spirits not to?”

“Who are the spirits? They sound nice.” She said, giggling to herself again. “But you know how us alicorns, we have a hive mind, but the cloud here, it disrupts that, and when we stopped hearing them a couple voices got trapped, they’re still here, up in the ol’ noggin, sometimes they take control, but usually they just leave me to it.”

“Oh great… she’s insane…” I muttered to myself with a forced smile before speaking up again. “But yes, if you tell me where it is I’ll let you out of the cell. Then we can go find the others and hopefully get out of this nightmare.”

“Oh yes, the key, right.” She said, starting to tap at her chin again. “All you gotta do... is levitate up that there console over there, there’s a small cavity under it where I put the password to the safe to get the key!”

“Right, levitate, I’ll get right on that…” I groaned as I looked back at the terminal. “So, do you have a name or should I just call you Crazy Green Alicorn?”

“We are… complicated.” She said with a little chuckle. “We, never decided on a name for ourselves, In unity there is no need for a name.”

“Well I can’t just keep calling you the Alicorn,” I pointed out as I looked at the terminal for a moment. It was still active, there was some data on the screen but it looked like it needed a password. “This’ll take a moment, I can’t just levitate it out of the way. How long have you been in the Royale anyway?”

“Too long.” She said, with a frown. “Without all the others it’s very quiet, We couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been here - just that it has been many moons.”

“Yes, you Ponies and your moons,” I said as I started moving the terminal slowly. “Sometimes I don’t even think you know how long a Moon is. Right now we need to focus on getting out of this place.”

“A moon is from whence it is full, to when it is full again - this is what we’ve always believed.” She said, taking a little bit of a sigh and shaking her head. “If this is correct, we do not know - But we do know that one of what we consider to be a moon cycle is around… thirty or so sun rises and sunsets.”

“Yes, we call that a month,” I said as I finally pushed it out of the way and picked up the paper with the password on it. I looked at it curiously for a moment. “Cheddar?”

“Yes yes! That is it, the password to the safe” She said, nodding her head frantically.

“Alright, if you say so,” I said as I moved the terminal one last time and looked around for the safe in question.

“Upstairs, door on the left, under the Sheriff’s desk,” She said, smiling at me.

“Thanks,” I said as I headed through the stairs and started walking up them. I kept on guard as if something might jump out at me at any moment, but nothing happened. I reached the room in question and found the desk and knelt down, brushing the keypad off a moment and then realizing that something was wrong.

This keypad didn’t have letters on it, it had numbers. Why then had the note had a word? That made absolutely no sense.

“Okay, this is insane, why would she tell me to go somewhere that doesn’t even have letters on the keypad?” I groaned as I looked it over again. This didn’t make any sense, but I might as well go see if that… weird Alicorn knew what was going on.

I sighed a little and headed back downstairs and into the room with the Alicorn. “Hey, Gestalt Alicorn thing, that safe doesn’t take letters. What kind of joke is this?”

“Oh! Right, sorry, that must be the password to the terminal downstairs in the armory, the numbers password is there for sure!” She said, chuckling a little to herself. “We did say this was a very good hiding place.”

“And you couldn’t have just told me that already?” I asked with a groan as I headed for the second set of stairs and headed down them.

This time as I got farther down my collar started beeping again. I looked around quickly, suddenly very scared as I looked for the source of the beeping. Spotting an old radio on a table, I raised my rifle and fired an energy bolt into it. It crackled with static before it went silent once more, falling onto the ground.

“This is getting really annoying…” I muttered to myself as I started walking down the corridor again. I adjusted my rifle again as I looked for the terminal in question as I reached the armory and looked around for a moment before finally finding what I was looking for.

Against the wall next to several old weapons and lockers was a table with a terminal. I sat down in front of it and typed in the password, CHEDDAR. This had better actually be the information I needed.

Thankfully this was true as I loaded up the terminal screen. There were several things listed on it already.

ARMORY LOG.
SHERIFF’S PERSONAL LOG #1.
INCIDENT REPORT #2013.
SAFE CODE.

I had to admit that despite how dire the situation was, I was a bit curious about this place. I opened up the Armory Log, it was just a log of what was taken out of the armory up until a certain date. I noticed that they seemed to increase after the Last Day. No real surprise there to be honest, this place had probably descended into chaos.

I opened the Sheriff’s personal log next. Most of the files were corrupted, but I pulled up one of them that was complete, the one on the Last Day..

We all knew this day would come eventually, even though we hoped that it wouldn’t. The bombs have fallen, and the Stella Royale is still standing. The Ponies that made it to the Gala are terrified, not that I blame them, I’m as scared as they are and so are my deputies.

That blasted Solace hasn’t even left the confines of his precious Casino. The Gala was supposed to go off and open it up to the Chateau. I guess he decided that with the bombs having fallen there was enough fireworks for one lifetime. Still, the fact that it’s gone completely quiet feels, wrong. I’m going to send Sky Fire to investigate, she’s the only Pegasus on the Force and she should be able to reach it.

If there’s anypony even left in the Casino at this point, I hope that the Princesses are watching over them. Right now we don’t even know if there’s anypony left in Equestria.

Some shining light this place wound up being.

I closed out of it and glanced over the remaining surviving logs. There wasn’t a lot of information there, just your basic reports of day to day life before and after the Last Day. Finally I closed out of it and opened up the Incident Report file.

Incident #2013:

A Pegasus pony appeared in Coucher du Soleil today. She was reduced to a feral animalistic state and attempted to attack any pony nearby. She was put down by Deputy Auger during an attempt to attack one of the maintenance ponies. When her body was recovered it was discovered that the pony was Deputy Sky Fire who had been sent to the Casino and vanished. Her body appeared to be fused with her armor due to an unknown cause. Her body was burned without further investigation in the event that it may be contagious.

“Spirits… so that’s how it all started…” I muttered as I read over the reports and files again and again. Now everything was starting to make more sense, though it still left a lot of questions about how the Pink Cloud got here to begin with.

I sighed a little and clicked the last option. My face fell, I don’t even know what to make of this to be honest. The screen had the numbers all over the place without any clear order, probably an effect of the Pink Cloud. I quickly wrote them down and logged off the terminal, so I’d have to talk to the Alicorn again.

I trotted back up the stairs and into the main room once more. “Hey, uh, I need your help again. It seems the code got a bit scrambled.”

“Okidoki, so what you’re going to wanna do, is enter the number then press the button marked Break to enter the next number.” She said, perking up again. “Now the order should be, 23 05 99 47 01.”

“I swear if this isn’t the actual code this time…” I muttered as I headed BACK upstairs to the safe, muttering something about insane Alicorns and insane ponies and insane EVERYTHING in this insane city.

I was going insane, that had to be it, I was probably lying back on the floor in that blasted bunker slowly losing my mind. I was never going to hear the end of this from the others in the Diplomatic Corps.

I sighed and crouched down by the safe again and put the numbers in one at a time. Finally it beeped as it opened up and I opened to see… a strangely perfectly preserved cupcake and a note.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRITS IS GOING ON IN THIS CRAZY PLACE!” I screamed as I kicked the safe and a sharp pain shot through my hoof. I finally collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily as I stared up at the bottom of the desk.

And that’s when I saw it, taped to the bottom of the desk, was a spirits damned key.

“Oh hey, there’s our cupcake, was wondering where we put it.” A familiar voice said, the cupcake levitating up and past me. Sitting across the room in a chair, munching away on the cupcake was that Alicorn, just cheerily smiling at me.

“You… I’m an idiot,” I groaned in realization. “You can’t lock yourself in the cell if you don’t have the key.”

“Oh no, the cell was locked, Alicorns can Teleport.” She said with a giggle. “Do you know what the lesson is?”

“Don’t trust an insane Alicorn to give you an honest answer?”

“The Casino you have been tasked to enter, the one we have been told to follow you into - is going to have many more dangerous and complex puzzles and traps then this one. If you could not do this, you would not stand a chance in there - and not only drag yourself to your death, but us with you.” She said, her demeanor changing. “Forgive us if a test was necessary, you see many ponies have tried, none have succeeded.”

“Yeah… I’m starting to realize that…” I said as I sat up again and looked at the Alicorn. “This place is a death trap isn’t it? The whole place I mean.”

“From the traps and puzzles, to the ghosts, most definitely.” She said, sighing softly. “My sister did not mean to mislead you, she only knows what we have told her - She is the most trustworthy of us with this kind of information, however - she did not know this was a test, she honestly believed that we were stuck in that cage until somepony unlocked it.”

“Well, here we are then,” I said as I got to my hooves. “I should probably formally introduce myself, shouldn’t I? My name is Sani, I’m a Viatorem from the Free Roam Alliance. Not that I’m exactly doing my job well right now.”

“As nice as that sounds, all of that means nothing to us.” The Alicorn said, standing and brushing herself off. “We are Unity, as you may have guessed. It is nice to meet you Sani.”

“It’s a fancy title for a diplomat really, one with survival training who seeks out settlements and factions instead of being sent to one specifically,” I explained. “But that’s not really important. I guess now we have to go and find the other two ponies that Father Quasar sent me to look for.”

“Ah yes, Father…” She said, pausing and taking a deep breath. “We would suppose you would prefer to use the name he has provided us rather than just referring to us as Unity?”

“Really, I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you,” I said with a shrug. “But that would probably be for the best, yes.”

“Father refers to us as Silver Show.” She said with a sigh. “We have no idea why he insists, something to do with our being green.”

“Well, I’m sure it makes sense in his head,” I shrugged. “So, we should get going I guess. Though I have to ask, do you know anything about this place? Like, other than that it’s a death trap?”

“We assume you have already met with a ghost?” Silver said, sitting up and taking a deep breath. “We will give you the key to defeating them quickly and efficiently. Do not bother shooting them, unless your weapon can disintegrate them, else wise you will absolutely need to use a knife or other tool of sorts and disable the creature, preferably through decapitation.”

“Yes, I learned that the hard way, luckily I’m familiar with these Ghosts through secondhoof accounts,” I said. “We call them Equus Expsirivat. Ponies around here call them Canterlot Ghouls, I guess calling them Ghosts is more pithy.”

“They are different than the ghouls of Canterlot, way back when we were tasked with holding together unity as we looked for a book in the ruins of Canterlot, we came across many of the ghouls there. Even the ones who are feral went down with ease - these here, they are different, they even appear to have a sort of magical resistance that the ones of Canterlot simply didn’t have.” Silver said, shaking her head with a sigh. “We are thankful that you did not fall to the ghost, that would have been most unfortunate”

“Yeah, it would have been,” I said with a smile. “Sorry if I got a bit frustrated back there. I’m glad you’re at least friendly. The only other things I’ve encountered here so far are Father Quasar and that Ghost thing. A friendly face helps.”

“Friendly helps, it gets us farther and helps us achieve more.” Silver said, slowly nodding. “We must admit, there is far more than what meets the eye going on here, Father Quasar is not all he appears to be, and other friendly faces - may not stay so friendly.”

“Yeah, I saw a note to that effect,” I said as I remembered the weird stash I had found. “But since he’s threatening to blow our heads off if we don’t do this, and I doubt even an Alicorn can recover from that, we should do as he says. At least for now.”

“We do agree.” Silver said and relaxed a bit. “You didn’t happen to see our weapon down in the armory, we are afraid one of the others may have came in and taken it.”

“I saw several weapons down there, most looked like they were too degraded to use though,” I replied. “What was it?”

“A zebra rifle, or a carbine of that sort. Has Nightbird engrained on the receiver.” Silver said, using her hooves as though she was trying to express what her rifle looked like. “It was a gift, from a friend, we must get it back.”

“I was more focused on the terminal, but we can go take a look,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s still in there.”

“We must hope.” She said, standing and heading out of the room. “To lose that rifle, would be a great disgrace to us.”

“Well, then I hope it’s in there,” I said as we started down the stairs. “So, uh, I have a question. Why don’t you just teleport out of the Royale? You could probably get out of range of Quasar’s detonator pretty easily.”

“Dead Mare’s switch.” She said, looking back at me. “Set to detonate if it loses connection with the detonator.”

“Because of course it is,” I groaned. “He’s a smart one isn’t he? Though somehow he still didn’t consider the fact that the radios would trigger the freakin’ collars.”

“Do you understand how frequencies work?” Silver said with a chuckle. “It’s the same system, these old radios broadcast on a frequency not too dissimilar from the detonator frequency, the two frequencies cancel each other out, collar thinks you’re no longer in range of the detonator, it beeps, letting you know to get back in range, and if you don’t… boom.”

“Still seems like an oversight the size of Okambo,” I muttered as we reached the stairs leading down. “But I see your point. Yes, that does make sense.”

“It makes more sense when you consider these radios were not turned on by him, but by one of the others he brought here for the same reason he brought you here, with the intent to kill others who he brought so that the wealth does not need to be shared.” Silver said, stretching a bit. “He even moved and placed radios around to make mazes out of them.”

“Yeah, treasure seems to bring out the worst in beings,” I commented. “Perhaps I’ll tell you some of the stories I’ve heard of the Great Hoard sometime. But in the meantime, let’s see if we can find your rifle.”

“Sounds like a plan, lead the way.” Silver said, motioning me forward.

We headed downstairs and into the armory. I started looking around for any sign of the weapon that she had mentioned, taking another look at the terminal for a moment before moving on. Checking around I found a few more rounds of ammunition for the revolver I found before, but nothing that looked like what she had described.

“Any luck over there?” I asked as I looked back at Silver.

“It is not where we had left it.” Silver said with a sigh, pulling one of the old rifles off the wall and placing the sling around her neck. “We will have to retrieve it.”

I sighed, of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Well, it wasn’t like we were on a deadline or anything. “Okay, we’ll find your rifle too, I promise.”

“We are certain that it will be with one of the others that you are to find.” She said, taking a deep breath and sighing. “If it is not with them, we are uncertain where to look next.”

“Because why not have us deal with thieves in addition to everything else,” I said with a groan as I raised my PipBuck and checked the information. “Alright, so the closest one is going to be in the Medical District. The other one is over in Residential on the other side of the main Plaza. I guess we should probably head to medical first.”

As we headed out of the police station I thought back to the terminal I had found before. Something about all of this still bugged me. Why had someone set off the Pink Cloud in the Stella Royale? What purpose did it serve? And what was Father Quasar really up to?

For now, we didn’t have any answers. I just had to hope that we’d find them soon.

00000

As we stepped out onto the street again I turned to say something else to Silver when my ear twitched a little at a familiar sound. I quickly spun around, drawing the knife spear off of my back as two more of those Ghosts came towards us. Only these weren’t wielding the same Knife Spear, instead they had what I swear looked like bear traps on their hooves.

“Okay… this is getting ridiculous,” I commented as I aimed the spear at the two Ghosts. “You get the legs, I’ll go for the head. Or do you think your magic might take them out?”

“As we have said before, magic does not appear to do very much against these creatures.” Silver said, taking a deep breath and drawing the rifle “We find disabling the legs tends to be the most effective, once they are down close in, it’s the most painless and quick way we have discovered.”

“Alright, take out the legs, stab them, avoid the freakin’ bear trap and the cloud, got it,” I said as I gripped the spear in my hooves. “Let’s do this then. Your weapon would probably do more damage and I don’t have the hang of a revolver yet.”

That alicorn didn’t say anything else, just the ear ringing after her firing several times. Both ghosts falling to the floor.

“We suggest you do the deed quickly, these kinds of wounds will not keep them down for long at all.” She said, quickly looking to me and motioning me forward. “Quick, effortless, painless, how it should be done.”

I nodded and ran forward with the spear and dug the tip of the spear into the first Ghost’s neck. It took only a moment for the ghostly pony to go down as I spun around to face the other Ghost with the spear in my hooves, but it wasn’t down. Instead it was awake again and lunged right at me with its bear trap fist.

I quickly raised my spear as the bear trap closed down around the shaft of the spear. I pulled the ghost in closer. It let out an unnatural sound as it tried to struggle out of my grip. It finally managed to detach the trap from around the spear as it swung its other hoof at my face, catching me across the muzzle as I fell back from the impact.

The Ghost snarled as it walked forward towards me again. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t seem to be willing to let me go. I adjusted myself, holding the spear out defensively. As it got close enough, I pushed at the butt of the spear and stabbed upward through the Ghost’s head and dug it in as deep as I could.

As I pulled it out again the Ghost crumpled to the ground as I took a step back away from it, letting out a sigh of relief. Once I was sure it was safe, I started to detach the bear trap weapon from its hoof. If I was going to have to fight hoof to hoof, I was going to need more weapons like this.

“Alright, I think that’s all of them,” I said as I slid the spear back into its slot and turned back to look at Silver. “At least for the moment.”

“We still do not understand why you don’t just use a ranged weapon, with a precise shot you could technically shoot the head off one.” Silver said with a shrug, coming over to where I was. “Anything of importance on them? Sometimes we have noticed they will have holotapes or something of the sort. Even just notes.”

“Because they have magical resistance and my only projectile weapon is not one I’m used to using,” I replied as I looked back at the Ghost I had impaled through the head. “Nothing on this one other than the Bear Trap which I already took. The other one might though.”

“You check that one as well, we will keep on the lookout, those ghosts - they can be a crafty bunch.” Silver said, raising her rifle and looking around. “We do not trust that these were the only ones there are in this area.”

“Agreed,” I said as I checked the body of the other Ghost. For a moment I didn’t think there was anything until I found folded into its suit’s pouches a piece of paper. I unfolded it carefully and held it up in the dim light so I could read it. “I’ve got something here, looks like a note of some sort.”

“Good good, it may have something on value.” Silver said lowering her rifle down and leaning to get a look. “These ghosts, they did not turn into these creatures quickly - they were ponies much longer, and many of them have written their findings or beliefs, we would suggest keeping a look out for any medium of storage - They wrote where they could.”

I nodded as I squinted a little to try and read it. I frowned a little when I made out what it said in the Equestrian Alphabet. That was definitely not a good thing to have found out. I read it out loud to her.

“The Clinic is compromised,” I read. “The cloud started seeping through the ventilation system two days ago. The Doctors have moved all the ponies not immediately affected by the Cloud to a secondary Triage location. We’ve been assigned to keep an eye on the doors to the Clinic in the event that anypony tries to enter or leave. Among the dead is my nephew… by Celestia I didn’t want to have to tell his parents the news. I still don’t know how I’m going to tell them… Celestia, please forgive me.”

“Most unfortunate, we are sorry to say - this is just one of many stories like this that we have recovered.” Silver said with a frown, ears pinned back “Perhaps it would be wise if we quickly moved along. No need to linger, it is no longer suffering now.”

“Yeah, let’s get going,” I said as I folded up the piece of paper and reverently placed it in my bags. Someone deserved to remember this place and what happened to the ponies. I gently knelt down next to the dead pony and spoke softly to him. “Ego portare historia tua mecum in aeternum.”

“Perhaps we should head to this… clinic, if not to perhaps find more of this poor creature’s fate, to at least stock up on healing potions and the like?” Silver said as she turned and started to walk. “That is, if you wish to piece together this story, may lead to answers you seek.”

“Yeah… we need to head that way anyway,” I said as I checked my PipBuck again. We started walking together towards the medical district. “My family would think I’m insane for what I’m doing here.”

“How so? Did you not come here seeking fortune and fame like the others? Or were you sent here to see if the stories were true for some higher power?” Silver said, looking over at me with a smirk. “The goddess sent us here roughly Twelve years ago, by your time. We have been trapped here since, we have seen many come, many go, many die all looking for the secrets of the Stella Royale.”

“I told you, I’m a Viatorem, I’m a diplomat, I was in Equestria because the Consul sent me and I found the broadcast,” I said as I adjusted myself a little. “But more than that I’m a Zencori. My Tribe has always been Storytellers, but we were picked to be the Viatorem because we are nomadic by nature already and can open dialogue with others. My parents didn’t like that I joined the Diplomatic Corps.”

“Ah, so wealth and glory.” Silver said nodding her head. “Why else would you follow the broadcast.”

“To a degree sure,” I said. “I thought it would lead to a friendly settlement or faction that I could make contact with, something notable. I’m not like Riva who fought in the Enclave War or Soia who got caught up in the Nightmare Society business. I guess, I wanted the glory of being the first to do something for the Alliance. And the treasure would benefit us as well. I guess I let that blind me.”

“You talk too much.” Silver said with a chuckle as she turned away and continued towards the Clinic. “In unity, we do not need so many words to tell each other something, we just think it and the others know.”

“Well, last time I checked I’m not an Alicorn,” I reminded her. “And if I remember correctly Zebras can’t be in Unity. But, yes I do tend to talk a lot. I think it’s because I spend a lot of time alone.”

“We do not require your manifesto in order for you to answer our simple questions.” Silver said, chuckling again. “Though, Earlier you asked me my name, I don’t believe you ever told me yours.”

“Uh, I told you my… oh right, multiple personalities,” I reminded myself. “Its Sani… am I going to have to introduce myself multiple times?”

“Unlikely, we have a shared consciousness that we can contribute information to, my sister however - did not commit this to it, therefore we had no idea, other than to trust you.” Silver said eyeing me for a moment. “You have not been around many others like us, have you.”

“I met some Alicorns in my travels, mostly to the south,” I replied. “Though none of them were exactly like you, no. They were…”

I paused a moment at that. Unity had collapsed years ago at around the same time she had apparently wound up in the Stella Royale from what I had heard. I wasn’t sure how exactly I was going to explain that to her. Or how exactly she was going to respond.

“They were different, I’ll just leave it at that,” I finally finished.

Silver paused, glaring at me for a moment before simply shaking her head and continuing onward. “We know you’re hiding something from us.”

“Nothing important, but we need to move on,” I said as I checked the map again. “We should take a turn up here to get to the Medical District. Hopefully we’ll be able to find whoever we’re looking for in there quickly.”

Silver stopped, glaring at me more now. “You will tell us this instant or we will invade your mind and take the information by force.”

“Uh, you see…” I muttered as I gulped a little. How exactly was I going to explain this to her? “There isn’t a Unity any more. The Goddess was killed years ago when Maripony was destroyed. The Unity Alicorns are still around, as many of them escaped the destruction of Maripony as they could. There’s no Unity left anymore, at least not one like it once was.”

“We… I see…” Silver said, an obvious sadness in her voice. “There is much to think about, then.”

“Yeah, I’m sure there is…” I said softly. “There are still Alicorns out there. They’re just trying to survive like anypony else in the Wasteland. Some of them have tried to form a new Unity but never really made one as strong as the old one. I wish I could tell you more, but this is all from secondhoof information.”

“Then there is a chance that this information is incorrect, and that the goddess is fine.” Silver said, taking a deep breath and looking towards me for a few moments. “We were never told what to do if something like what you described happened, so many contingency plans we had to memorize, but not one for this.”

“If it’s true, what will you do then?” I asked.

“If it is true, we have outlived our duty and thus will immediately terminate our lives.” Silver said, in a calm matter of fact tone. “We have no reason for existing outside serving the goddess, and helping keep Unity together, no unity no reason for us to exist.”

“Perhaps you’ll find a new purpose,” I suggested. “If there are still Alicorns out there, they have found their own new purposes. What makes you any different?”

“We grew up under the goddess, it is all we know.” Silver said, sighing a bit “We don’t know what to do with ourselves without her guiding light.”

“I wish I could tell you what to do,” I said as I looked at the door leading into the medical district for a long moment. “I’m a Viatorem, a Traveler. But I’m also a storyteller. The one thing I’ve learned from both these roles is that Ponies and Zebras, we’re both driven by something similar. A desire to survive and make something of ourselves and the world around us. You can terminate your life, or you can live on and become something more. Find your purpose in this world, and challenge yourself to survive. Your life is your own, you no longer have to have it dictated by either the Goddess or Father Quasar, do something more with it.”

“The goddess never dictated anything.” Silver said, her voice growing softer. “She only asked us to listen and share her vision, those who did not agree were not forced in, those who agreed and believed in her guiding light were bestowed with her gift, everlasting life, free from weakness and sickness, perfectly suited for the wasteland. And then to talk to others, have them hear her vision, and if they agree, to bestow her gift on them as well.”

“Well, I can’t tell you what to do with your life,” I replied as I adjusted my weapon for a moment. “But first, we have to get through this nightmare. So, are you ready to see what’s waiting for us in there?”

“Ready as we could ever be.” Silver said with a slow nod as she lifted her rifle once more. “Let us hope, that there are not many of them.”

I nodded as I slid the bear trap onto one hoof and adjusted the spear for a moment. I pushed the door open and we headed into the medical district together.

00000

The Medical District had the same architecture as the rest of the Chateau. I checked the map for a moment, we needed to go to the northwest part of the district. But the gate leading that way was collapsed with a lot of rubble blocking the way. I looked around before spotting another way around and glanced back at the Alicorn.

“That seems oddly convenient,” I pointed out. “Can you teleport us over there?”

“Of course we could, however there is no guarantee that we would not be teleporting right into a room full of radios, or worse yet, a room full of ghosts.” Silver said with a chuckle, “We believe it is best for us to just walk it.”

“Right, great plan, let’s walk into what looks like a trap,” I muttered as we started walking again. I kept an eye on my EFS to look for anything that was going to try and attack us. “Keep an eye out, I don’t like this…”

“Question.” Silver said, tapping my shoulder “How often has that Stable-Tec garbage actually worked here? We were nearly snuck up on earlier and you seemed to have no clue”

“Technically this was reverse engineered by the Propoli, not made by Stable-Tec,” I said as I hit the PipBuck with my hoof. “But yeah, the EFS is on the fritz. Probably because of the Pink Cloud or something. If I ever make it back home I’m going to have a word with Myrik about it.”

“We have heard stories, a tale of others not too dissimilar from the ghosts - They did not appear on the eyes forward sparkle, because they have no life signs.” Silver pointed out. “Perhaps the ghosts are the same, they do not appear because they do not breathe.”

“That doesn’t make sense, the Ghosts are a variety of Canterlot Ghoul, Ghouls Canterlot or otherwise still appear on the EFS,” I pointed out. “Unless we’re missing something.”

“Likely we are missing something.” Silver said with a shrug “Canterlot ghouls breathe, we have never observed the ghosts breathing.”

“Yeah, well if we stand around contemplating it they might just come after us,” I pointed out as we started towards the passageway again. Something about all of this bothered me, it felt like there was something about this that we were missing. I adjusted my weapons again and nodded to the columns on either side and whispered to her. “We’ve got an open courtyard ahead. These things don’t seem completely devoid of intelligence, so I’d bet my last cap that they’re luring us into a killing field. Any ideas on what to do from here?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but we believe you are giving them too much credit, they have a hunter's instinct, not the desire to set up traps” Silver said with a roll of her eyes “It is far more likely that one of the others is up there, taking pot shots at the ghosts that wander through.”

Maybe she was right. My combat training from the Roamani and Achu had apparently worked a bit too well. I thought I had seen some intelligence in the Ghost’s actions, but if she was right then I had been overthinking it.

I nodded and glanced out carefully. “Okay, so how do you suggest we proceed?”

“The opposite of any combat training you have, lest we find the bad end of a rifle.” Silver said with a chuckle “Make noise, make sure it is intelligible and clearly not made by the Ghosts, less likely they may decide that we are good targets.”

“I swear, Ranith is laughing at me in the Zebra Lands…” I muttered as I remembered the Roamani instructor back home. “Alright, so we try and talk to them or something maybe? That would probably be the quickest way to do this. But that might also attract Ghosts.”

“The more you deal with Ghosts, the better you become at handling them.” Silver said with a sigh. “It’s either attract ghosts, or get shot by a likely sniper, which do you prefer?”

“I see your point,” I agreed as I glanced back out again. “Alright, let’s do this.”

I called out as loudly as I could. “To whoever’s out there, we’re not your enemies. We’re stuck in the same situation you’re in with these collars. Father Quasar sent me to find you and the others. If you’re out there, say something.”

“We doubt that you can be easily heard at this range,” Silver said, shaking her head. “Only thing we can think of is to go into the open and see if we get shot, we are far harder to kill, and easily healed in a place like this.”

“Not to mention my stripes might make me a target,” I pointed out. “Alright, you go, just be careful. I don’t know what would happen if one of us died.”

“Death.” Silver said, chuckling a little.

“Yes, thank you for reassuring me, you must’ve been very popular at the Unity’s parties,” I said sarcastically. “So, yeah, be careful please.”

“Death is a fact of life to us, many of us knew that we would die in service to the goddess, but we knew that if we did fall, the others would remember us, would mourn us, that we would live on through them because all our minds are one.” Silver said, resting her rifle at her side and started to step out into the open.

I adjusted myself so I could see and hear what was going on better but didn’t go out into the open just yet. Every instinct and lesson I had been taught was telling me not to go out there, it was a killing field. Silver seemed confident that it would work, but I wasn’t so sure.

I just had to hope that she was right.

A loud bang and an ear splitting crack raced through the air, the first thing that came to mind is that Silver had just been shot by the unseen sniper, but shortly there after I could hear Silver laughing.

“Nice shot!” I heard her call out “Going to come down here and let us see who you are, or you just going to stay up there and play the silent type?”

“Go away, freak” An unfamiliar voice called back, “Be thankful I didn’t let it kill you”

Well, that was a great start to this. At least whoever it was hadn’t killed Silver yet. Apparently they had taken out a Ghost though. Maybe that was a good sign.

“Freak? What makes us a freak? Why not come down, we have a striped friend that would like to meet you, Father Quasar demands it.” Silver said, chuckling to herself once more. “We promise we’re not contagious and do not bite.”

“You’re a freak because you’re a mutant, a sick creature created by the wasteland, and this friend - if they really exist they will come where I can see them” The other voice called back.

“She is a Viatorem named Sani.” Silver said, using a wing to motion for me to come out.

“Yeah, I don’t think that word means anything to her,” I called out but walked forward anyway. I looked up towards where the pony was. “I don’t mean you any harm. I serve as a diplomat for the Free Roam Alliance in the Zebra Lands.”

In a flash of magic the pony from the tower disappeared from her sniper’s nest and appeared in front of me, looking me over for a moment. “I know what a Viatorem is.” She said, continuing her visual inspection. “Your story checks out Zencori, What is it that Father Quasar wants from me now.”

“Whatever his plan is to get into the Casino, he’s putting it into action now,” I replied. “He sent me to get you and the others together. Given we all have these bomb collars on, we don’t really have much of a choice right now.”

“I see, and what does he hope to find in there? He should know by now that it’s a deathtrap in there, any try I’ve made to infiltrate has ended up with me being back out here licking my wounds.” She said with a huff, “Whatever, I guess.”

“Cheery lot you Enclave soldiers, pillage any good villages lately? Maybe burned down the homes of the innocent just to send a message?” Silver added with a chuckle.

“Watch it freak, I don’t have to deal with you - I have to deal with her.” That mare snapped back at Silver.

“You’re Enclave? That I wasn’t expecting” I asked as I looked at the new pony curiously for a moment. “And, I would tell you what he’s planning if I knew. Whatever is at the bottom of that casino has to be worth risking other’s lives over. And we’re not exactly in a position to argue.”

With that I tapped the collar around my neck for emphasis.

“What intel I had followed him here pinned him as a former Steel Rangers elder, went astray and a bit insane. I wasn’t expecting to get jumped, knocked out and a bomb collar strapped to my neck. All he said was he needed my horn for something.” She said with a huff. “Next thing I can remember I was coming out of this weird auto-doc, saying they did something to… modulate my magic, or something”

“I see,” I said as I stroked my chin thoughtfully for a moment. “So that’s why he needs you, but the two of us don’t make any sense. I’m not exactly special, and Silver here is… well, she’s Silver. I’m not sure what her deal is other than a former member of Unity with multiple personalities. Not sure why he’d need either of us.”

“He needs you to actually enter whatever is below the casino, that’s pretty clear, you’re a diplomat, compromise and peacemaking is your agenda, one of us - we might take what he’s after and run, you - you’re more likely to let him keep it.” That unicorn mare said, stretching a bit. “And her? It’s because she’s basically unkillable here, except by that bomb collar”

“So, then the big question who is our last player and how do they fit on the gameboard?” I commented. “Alright, look, we all know who we are and why we’re here. Given we all need to get out of this with our heads intact, are we going to work together or not?”

“In order to keep my head on my shoulders and be able to return home to my son, yes.” The unicorn said with a scowl. “Don’t know about the freak over there, She keeps trying to be friendly with me, but I know their type, can’t trust them farther than you can throw them.”

“We haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” Silver said with a huff. “Mrs Solstice here is just a bit bitter, apparently a alicorn of some type took something from her.”

“I told you to stay out of my head!” Solstice said with a growl to her voice. “Dear Celestia do you not have any personal space recognition?!”

“Both of you, this isn’t the time for this!” I said. “We are stuck in a living Hell right here. This isn’t the time to be at each other’s throats. Silver, give her personal space. Solstice, don’t call her a freak. I don’t like these collars and I don’t like the fact that we’re all having to be stuck together like this. We’re going to have to get into that Casino and do whatever he tells us even if we don’t like it. Right now it’s our only way of surviving this place.”

“Maybe your job is to play mediator between us and stop us from killing each other.” Solstice said with a groan. “But fine, I’ll not call the fre-... Alicorn, a freak anymore.”

“I never invaded her personal space, just telling you that, I have the ability to, but being connected to an unwilling pony is as traumatic for me as it is angering for them.” Silver added. “I only know what I know because Quasar told me.”

“Alright, good,” I said as I looked between the two of them for a moment. “We’re going to check the clinic and then head for the Residential District for, whoever the last pony is. There’s something weird about this place, and I want to know more about what happened here.”

“The pink cloud, obviously.” Solstice said with a roll of her eyes. “How it got here is the bigger question, though I suppose you’d know more about that than any of us, I suppose there was just too many promising unicorns here.”

“That’s the thing, the Pink Cloud was only deployed three times by the old Imperial records and more recent ones,” I pointed out. “The first time being at Littlehorn, the second time being at Canterlot, and the third time being in one of our cities. There is no record of it ever being used on the Stella Royale. Either the Last Caesar hid the records very well, or something else happened here.”

“Yes, because old world zebra totally did everything they were told to do and recorded everything perfectly, especially when they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.” Solstice said with a sneer.

“Okay, seriously, you need to stop it.” Silver said, glaring at that unicorn. “We have had enough of your attitude and holier than thou methodology, you were captured just like us and did as told by a character you have even identified as outright insane - you are no better than us so get off your high horse.”

“Oh no, the Alicorn thinks she can boss me around.” Solstice said before rolling her eyes. “Point is, it’s here, only creatures out there that have it is the zebras, the only way it could be here is zebras.”

“Okay, I’ll admit the records could have been lost,” I admitted. “But still, I don’t want to leave out any possibilities. We need to investigate this, and last time I checked I'm here too. If I knew something about Pink Cloud being at the Stella Royale, I would have avoided that broadcast. I just want to make sure that there is no other explanation. I also want to learn what happened to this place, the ponies who lived here, they deserve to have their stories remembered by someone. I will go alone if I have to, you can wait for me at the fountain back at the main plaza. But you both know there is something weird about this place and we need to know what happened.”

“We are in agreeance, we have been here longer than most, the cloud disrupts our telepathic abilities, we have not been able to talk to Unity.” Silver said, looking between me and that Unicorn. “To find out why it is here, could prevent it from being used elsewhere.”

“Exactly, if there is a chance it wasn’t the old Empire, we need to know who did cause it,” I said with a nod. “There could be more places like this out there. The NCR and Enclave deserve to know if there might be a threat. So, what about you Solstice?”

“I can agree that if there is somepony using the pink cloud now, there is a new threat beyond what we could imagine, so fine - you have my compliance. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll accept it.” Solstice said with a sigh.

“Alright, then we’re going to the Clinic,” I said as I turned to look at the path towards the clinic for a moment. “So far it’s the earliest report I’ve found of the Cloud being in the Chateau itself. There was an earlier report that suggests that it started in the Casino. The clinic may give us some clues at the very least. Can you tell us anything about the situation there, Solstice?”

“If you were here a week ago - it was over run with ghosts.” Solstice said, with a sigh. “Thanks to my rifle here, I’ve been luring them out and picking them off one by one, no more than four or five are left in there.”

“Alright, we’ll head there then, carefully,” I said. “Solstice you know the lay of the land so lead the way.”

“I mean, if you insist,” Solstice said with a chuckle. “Really there isn’t anything dangerous or deadly around here, a couple radios that are easy enough to avoid and the ghosts which, one shot and they go down.”

“That’s an anti-machine rifle, isn’t it” Silver added “A bit overkill don’t you think?”

“Overkill is the best kill when you’re in a life or death situation, want to make sure they never get back up.” Solstice replied, giving her rifle a pat.

“Alright then, let’s get going,” I said as we headed towards the Clinic.

LEVEL UP!

Perk Received: Stella Royale Negotiator.
Details: Your training as a Viatorem by the FRA has given you an edge in the ruins of the Stella Royale casino. Now if only your companions won’t kill each other. You get an extra 10 points speech and barter and special conversation options while talking to Inhabitants of the Royale.

Author's Note

Silver and Solstice were made and written by theLittlestofPips.