Fallout Equestria: Wandering Woes

Chapter 12: The Frozen Path
(Rogue)

“And then I said, ‘Why the long face?’ but no one seemed to have gotten the joke. It was kinda sad but I didn’t let it stop me!” Junker says happily near the middle of the group as we’re walking; he’s been telling these stories for the last couple of days of the journey, and for the most part, it’s been the only sound we’ve heard. The rest of the group, aside from Melody, has been rather quiet. His aggravating jokes, however, come to a rest as we are finally approaching the mountains in front of us.

“The mountains appear quite colder than I was expecting; the snow is deep even a few hundred feet up. Are we sure this is going to go well?” Melody asks with a worried tone, she packed quite a few things that we got from Miss Ditzy, but she is correct in that the snow is burying most of the landscape in front of us the higher up we look. Marrow speaks up for the first time in possibly the last few days.

“We will be fine. The landscape around here was heavily affected by the radiation and so the snow is much more dense and constant; however, with my magic and our outfits we shall be fine. The worst we should face is that it’s cold, but beyond that it should be just like the last couple of days... Lots of bad jokes and horrible timing,” He seems to be rather frustrated even if he’s not putting it into his words. I assume we have all gotten annoyed by Junker’s jokes, but they have been the only real conversation lately, so it wasn’t the worst thing.

I shrug while listening to them and simply start walking forwards, starting the ascent up the mountain as the rest of them follow. I don’t like this path in the slightest; too many dangers that I can’t predict. I don’t mind the cold, nor does Vision, as we have been enduring it for most of our lives since we lived above the cloud layer. However, the cold is not what concerns me up here... From what I have gathered so far, the main dangers that are lurking for us are either bounty hunters, of which there seemed to have been plenty, or various bandits or even a ghoul if we’re unlucky. Given the radiation and the mutations it can cause, there are also many other dangers I can’t even imagine that could be lurking up ahead. I slow down for a second to grab a coat out of Junker’s pack, putting it on in preparation for the long journey; everyone does the same with the exception of Tolson, for some reason. I’m rather surprised at that, but it’s not the most concerning thing I’ve watched him do lately, so if he wants to freeze, I’ll leave him to it.

The walk up takes hours, and every few minutes the cold seems to grow deeper. Eventually, we reach a point where it starts to flatten out a bit; the snow here is several feet deep and it’s hard to see, not to mention the chilly air is causing my lungs to hurt with every breath. After another few minutes of walking, we wander into what appears to be the ruins of a small town. Hopefully it was from before the weather became frigid, as I can’t imagine living in this cold. We take a second to correct our placement on the mountain, as walking blindly will end up making us lose more ground than we will make, and thankfully there’s no wind to muffle any noise.

I pause as faintly I swear I could hear something. Tolson’s ear also twitches as he looks around; good, I’m not the only one that heard it. I strain my ears, waiting for something… anything… Finally, I hear it again. It sounds like a filly yelling out. Why would a child be up so far in the mountains? Before I can wonder much more, I start hearing some other voices; several adult males. Looking in the direction of the voices, I gesture to Vision to scout ahead; at this point the shouting is starting to get louder and the rest of the party can hear it. Stealth will likely be the best strategy here as they haven’t spotted us yet, so I have Junker and Melody stay back. His size and weight will cause a lot of problems, and her size will cause her to sink into the snow, which could have its own health risks.

Tolson, Vision, Marrow, and I start heading towards the sound. As we move across the snow and crest the hill, Vision pulls out his sniper. “I see three males, and a filly... It looks to me like they are threatening her.”

Kinda odd, considering we’re in the mountains, and it’s deserted around here. It does feel strange, certainly like a trap. However, if it were a trap, I’d have to wonder how they would know that anypony might be coming through here in the first place, and why they would use a filly as bait. She’s barely taller than the snow, similar to Melody’s height.

“It is strange, however I don’t think we have reason to be concerned. Tolson, you should head back to the rest and find somewhere to make camp. It’s going to get dark soon, and we can’t sleep out in the snow or we’ll freeze to death. I don’t want to scare the filly, so we’ll take them out relatively quickly; Vision, you’ll get the first shot, and after that I’ll slam into the second’s legs to knock him over and have Marrow impale the third. Make sense?” Everyone nods at that as Tolson simply turns around and walks away; he may not be the most attentive individual, but at least he listens.

The next few moments are exceptionally quick. I run forwards through the snow, letting it muffle my hoofprints with Marrow directly behind me; as we get close enough, the filly sees us and a brief moment of a mix between worry and hope flashes across her face before Vision’s shot rings out and the one furthest in the back has his head explode across the snow. Seconds later as the other two turn to look at their fallen friend, I slam my rifle into the middle one’s side and unload several bullets into him, as Marrow uses his telekinesis to slam his shortsword right through his skull. The bandits barely had the time to register what had happened before they were all on the ground dead. I stand up and shake the snow off my gun before sliding it back onto my shoulders, looking at the filly. “Are you alright? Did they harm you?”

She stands up, a look of worry washing over her face as she seems to try to hide her expression; she has a deep blue coat with a silver mane, she almost blends into the snow. “I’m okay, my name is Shimmering Rain. Uh… thank you for saving me, I wandered away from my parents and haven’t been able to find them and these men found me. They shouldn’t be too far away though.” She starts to shuffle away from us, although I notice that her gaze looks behind me as Vision lands and there seems to be a glint of recognition for just a moment before it disappears.

“Shimmering Rain? Huh, that sounds kinda familiar... Are you from New Appleloosa by chance? If you want, we can take you to your parents if they are close by.” She shakes her head rather vigorously; I wonder if we scared her with our demonstration. “No, no. Thank you, but I can find them. And uh, yeah I’m from there. We left from there a bit ago and we are traveling now. Um… T-thank you for the help, but I have to go!” And with that, she turns around and takes off through the snow. Considering how deep it is, it’s more like she’s jumping through most of the snow, but it’s surprisingly effective, especially for how young she seems to be.

“Well, that was odd. Did you know her, Rogue? She seemed to recognize us a bit. Considering we’ve been in New Appleloosa for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if our faces spread around a bit but it’s still strange.” Vision asks as he shoulders his rifle as well.

I shake my head. “No, never seen her before. You are correct in that this was very odd though; it’s also odd that her parents would take her here in the first place. A snowy mountain is no place for fillies… Although, considering how it is down here, I doubt anywhere is.”

At this point Marrow speaks up. “Whatever is the case, we've done our good deed for the day, let’s head back to camp. Hopefully Tolson has found somewhere to make do for the night, if not we’re going to be in for a long search.”

I sigh, the prospect of being out here during the night is not an enjoyable one. We are closer to the cloud layer so a bit of sunshine is getting through and the gray of the day is unpleasant, but as night starts to fall that gray is gradually getting darker and the temperature is dropping incredibly quickly. Even with my coat, I can still feel the wind digging into my side.

Turning around with the two, we start heading back to the other half of the group; after a few minutes, we reconnect with them and Melody is holding what appears to be a torch, seeming to use it for warmth. Considering her size, I’m not surprised the cold is getting to her... Weirdly enough, Tolson is nowhere to be seen. “Hey Melody, where did Tolson go? Is he off chasing a random chair he found?”

She shakes her head as she shivers, the torch floating next to her. “No, he went to go find some kind of cave; he said if he didn’t come back by the time you all got here just to keep moving forwards and he’ll find us.” I nod at that; it’s a smart tactic, although one I’m surprised he thought of. I beckon the group onward as the wind starts to pick up a bit. The freezing cold is starting to dig even deeper as the snow is getting disturbed and flying up to hit us. After around an hour or so, Tolson comes back to the party. The wind is threatening to ramp up even harder, and the sun has almost completely fallen away now, and the temperature has dropped even lower. “I really hope you have some good news, Tolson, it’s not looking good out here.”

He nods although even I can barely see it through the snow whipping around. “I found a small cave; it’s a bit ahead, but we should be careful. If the wind picks up any more it could start-” He’s interrupted by the sound of snow being heavily shifted above us. Although I haven’t been in snowy terrain for quite some time, it’s very easy to assume what that sound was… the beginning of an avalanche.

We all look at each other for a moment before we start to run hard; however before we can get more than a few feet, Junker seems to hit something and it causes him to stagger as the object pops out of the ground. The object in question appears to be some kind of skeleton, one that starts to move as it is dragged out of the ground... Dammit, I wasn’t expecting a ghoul to show up, and this is not a good time for it.

The ghoul sits up as Junker reels back, before it lets out a piercing scream. This scream is followed by quite a few more screams, practically filling the surrounding area before Junker jumps onto the creature, cutting its scream short. Unfortunately the scream did its job as a horde appeared around us, as well as the sound of more snow shifting above. While the avalanche is not as immediate as I first thought, it’s definitely getting disrupted and that means it could fall on us at any second.

Danger seems to fill every corner of our lives and now we are facing down a horde of ghouls and may get buried alive in the dead of night with a blizzard forming. How could this night possibly get worse?