Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Long Trek Back

“—a wonderful day we’re having? It’s clouds, clouds, clouds, as far as the eye can see, but at least it’s familiar. When the cloud cover periodically lets loose with rain, well, you might catch a glimpse of that ‘blue sky’ we hear those old songs singing about, or perhaps the stars, glittering far above us like diamonds. Maybe one day the pegasi will finally open up the sky and we’ll see those things all the time… Ha! Fat chance of that! This is Radio Free Wasteland, keeping it real for you twenty-four hours a day, and I’m your host, DJ Pon3, passing you off now to three straight hours of the finest music to survive the megaspells.”

I adjusted the controls of Distribution Station 11 to make sure it was also retransmitting Radio PC before shutting off the internal speakers in the station. Once the conflict with New Pegasus and the Consortium appeared to be resolved, I had to find something else to do with my time. I’d stuck around the area for a few weeks, seeing more of New Pegasus and the settlements pledged to it that were beginning to repopulate. I had also met with the new leadership of the Consortium, including Unit 1-6, who’d now taken the name “Hope,” something many of the pondroids were doing to shed their old identities and start fresh. I’d come to the Iron Valley to search for the origin of the Dogs of War; once that had been accomplished, I’d continued on to find RoBronco Site Dahlia and became involved in the drama here in the east. Now, like when I’d finished spreading Radio Free Wasteland to the northern Commonwealth, I found myself adrift. Unsure of what my purpose was now, I’d decided to spread Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the southern Commonwealth as I made my way back to Pleasure Coast. What awaited me there, I wasn’t sure; I’d have to discover that when I arrived in what had become the closest thing I had to a home in the Griffin Commonwealth.

I stepped over the splattered bug carcasses as I exited the distribution station’s control center, rejoining Rael on the overlook platform. DS-11 was located to the northwest of New Pegasus, where the Iron Valley bent north, and had been unoccupied by anything other than overgrown cicadas. The station was in range only of DS-9, also known as the town of Hope Springs, where I’d first learned of the Rokkism my companion practiced. If they only knew they could reach the entire Commonwealth with their words by setting up these stations.... I imagine they’d find it quite an enticing concept.

I looked down on the Iron Valley from the distribution station’s platform, taking in the scenery. A cold wind gusted by, chilling me to the bone. I pulled my coat tighter, resolving to get heavier, warmer apparel after descending from the distribution station. The Iron Valley hadn’t fallen to uncomfortably cold weather, being a desert, but temperatures had gradually dropped during my time there. It was easy to forget that winter had come unless one flew to higher altitudes where snow lay heavy far down the slopes of the mountains, or traveled to the northern Commonwealth, which experienced the full range of seasons. Being an Equestrian, I’d never really experienced seasons before, where the pegasi allowing everything beneath their cloud cover to remain the same throughout the year; but in the Griffin Commonwealth, the Weather Corps saw dutifully to keeping the cycle going. In places that wanted nothing to do with Grand Marshal Gideon, the seasons were still changed as local griffins and ponies took it upon themselves to turn the wheel of time.

Rather than delaying my departure any longer pondering the differences between Equestria and the Griffin Commonwealth, I loped over to my hopper. My time in New Pegasus and the Consortium had not been entirely without profit, and through a combination of rewards for my aid and odd jobs, I’d managed to purchase one of the one-seated gyrocopters from a pony in New Pegasus. It had required some work to fix up and modify, but when I was done, I had a craft that would allow a creature with my unique combination of hooves and claws to fly. No more would I be stymied by heights or require Rael to be tethered to the ground in order to follow me. It would also allow me to travel much more quickly through the Commonwealth and let me cross mountains that I otherwise would’ve had to go around before. Kicking the flying machine into gear, I launched off the distribution station’s platform and dropped into the valley below, on my way to New Pegasus.

***

Two days later, we flew through the mountains southeast of the Iron Valley, a warm cap snug on my head and a parka around my frame. Snowy landscape passed below as I piloted my hopper toward the griffin roost of Comettrail. As a rule, I’d tried to avoid roosts after my poor experiences, but I’d resolved to change that on my way back to Pleasure Coast. I figured that with Rael with me, I might have a better chance with the griffin populations. Here in the south, a pony wouldn’t be so out-of-place either. Comettrail was also directly on the path to Distribution Station 12, my next target, so going around it when I could have a warm bed and meal instead seemed foolish.

“You seem happy about something!” I shouted, not directly at Rael, but so that the microphone dangling in front of my mouth would pick up my words over the whirring overhead blades.

Among the things I’d acquired in New Pegasus had been a pair of headsets so that Rael and I could communicate while flying, and in general, whenever we became separated. The closer we got to Comettrail, the more of a grin graced the beak of the Rokkist missionary, until I had to say something about it.

“Comettrail is where I grew up!” Rael’s voice sounded overloud in my headphones as he shouted, still not fully comprehending that he didn’t need to yell in order for me to hear him perfectly well.

“So, you’re coming home?” I replied.

“Yes! Well, where I came from at least! I grew up in the Rokkist mission in Comettrail and was trained by Brother Roth before being sent to Moonraze!”

I listened as Rael went on about the other Rokkists he’d grown up with in the mission until Comettrail came into sight. It wasn’t easy to miss, as the sun reflected brilliantly off both the large lake in the center of the roost and the soaring skyscrapers that surrounded it. As we drew nearer, I saw that Comettrail had been built in the caldera of a dead volcano, the ground gradually curving up from the lake until it rose precipitously at the lip of the depression, then leveled off to follow the mountain’s gentle slope. Surprised griffins in the uniforms and armor of the Air Corps rose to meet me as I flew in, and they directed me to land atop an old shopping complex on the outskirts of town.

Rael was naturally excited to show me his hometown and I obliged him, allowing him to lead me down the streets toward the roost’s center. Like all roosts, Comettrail was diminished from its Wartime glory, but this one didn’t seem to be diminished very much. The population had clearly decreased, and buildings were partially or wholly abandoned, yet the griffins seemed unnaturally fastidious in keeping everything as repaired and clean as possible. Where the windows of the gleaming skyscrapers had broken, they’d been replaced not with scrap metal or wood, but with shiny new metal panels or electronic screens. Griffins hovered hundreds of pony heights over the ground as they washed and dried the intact windows and scrubbed the metal frames between them.

Down on the street, I noticed that a large number of zebras seemed to have made their homes in Comettrail. Most looked at me with surprise, when they deigned to look at me at all. Each one wore coats or cloaks, but none looked very heavy (at least not heavy enough to keep a desert animal warm in the high-altitude winter), though I’d also grown warm enough to shed my coat and hat as we walked. The climate in Comettrail was surprisingly mild, due to the heat still produced by the volcano beneath us that filtered its way up through the rock to warm the streets and keep the lake from freezing over. Steam rose lazily from equally spaced grates at the side of the streets, accompanied by the scent of sulfur.

“Why are there so many zebras here?” I asked Rael as another group of them trotted past, intent on going the opposite direction as us.

“Comettrail is the closest roost to what was once the Zebra Empire,” Rael explained as he landed on the street and padded along next to me, stretching the toes of his hindfeet to enjoy the heat filtering up through the pavement. “Much like how the Iron Valley was opened to pony industry, Comettrail was opened to zebra business. There were many who lived here already before the megaspells fell and others came here in the aftermath, fleeing the wasteland their empire had become. It’s a good thing I was with you, Doc. Usually they don’t allow ponies into Comettrail, in order to prevent fights from breaking out.”

The admonition the Air Corps officer had given me not to make trouble suddenly made a lot more sense. Conflict between zebras and ponies had destroyed the world, and many were still liable to bear a grudge either for how the War had ended or as a holdover from those bitter feelings. I certainly didn’t intend to cause the zebras of Comettrail any trouble, so long as they let me be.

Rael picked up the pace as we neared the center of the city and passed through a plaza flocked with griffins before reaching the Rokkist mission. The building Rael had grown up in looked to be one of the oldest in the city, built of stone and jutting out into the lake on an artificial quay. Its big, blocky walls had scraps here and there of faded paint, but mostly they had been scraped clean. Over a colonnaded entrance was a large wooden recreation of the Rokkist symbol. Most griffins gave the building a wide berth, but Rael practically ran inside.

I tried to keep up as I followed, observing that the Rokkist mission had once been a bathhouse of some kind. Through some of the doorways, I could see griffins in simple cassocks looking up in surprise from their Books of Rok as Rael ran past. At the center of the mission was an open courtyard where young griffins played a game that involved bouncing a ball off the wall and through a hoop. Supervising them was an older griffin with dark blue fur and gray feathers, with some of the edges tinted light blue. He was dressed in the simple robes of a Rokkist priest, and a small pair of spectacles perched on his beak.

“Rael?” he asked in disbelief as my companion nearly barreled into him before pulling up short to give a respectful bow.

“Brother Roth,” Rael greeted the elder griffin, a smile creeping back onto his beak after the formal greeting. “You’re looking well.”

“If you’ve returned, does that mean you’ve completed your pilgrimage already?” Roth asked in surprise.

“No, but … it’s a long story,” Rael said, glancing at me.

“I understand,” Roth said as he placed a fatherly claw on Rael’s shoulder. “Let’s get comfortable.”

Roth led Rael and me out of the courtyard to a sitting room where the floor was heaped with cushions, and coffee and pastries were provided. As we drank and snacked, Rael told Roth about everything that had happened to him since leaving Commettrail. His journey to New Pegasus and across the Iron Valley I’d never heard him talk about, at least in detail, but soon he was in familiar territory. He relayed how I’d saved him at Distribution Station 5 before we’d ever really met, and his time in Moonraze leading up to my arrival and the rebellion that overthrew the Mythologists. It was, as Rael had said, a long story, made even longer as griffins repeatedly entered the room in ones and twos to see if the rumors were correct and Rael had truly returned. Every time this happened, they greeted Rael like a long-lost brother and sat down to join in the libations and chat, interrupting Rael’s story. At one point, when the room became particularly crowded, I excused myself to get some air. Rael had nearly finished his story anyway, already up to the New Pegasus-Consortium war, so I didn’t feel I would miss out on anything. He’d probably like to share some of what he’d observed about me with Roth without me listening in.

Outside the Rokkist mission, the city remained busy, though now I had more time to observe exactly why the griffins were so clustered around the plaza. Banners, bunting, pennants, and paper lanterns were ubiquitous, being hung from streetlamps, signs, and the posts of canopies that had been erected in the plaza while I was inside. Tall banners were being unfurled down the sides of skyscrapers, while other buildings had designs projected on them, griffins testing how they looked as the sun began to set over the rim of the caldera. Beneath the canopies griffins were busily setting up food and goods stalls. The activity wasn’t just confined to the plaza in front of the Rokkist mission, either; I could see similar preparations going on all around the coast of the lake. In the distance, I could see a hot air balloon ascending unplanned and the small shapes of griffins chasing after it.

“What’s going on?” I asked Rael as he joined me outside the mission, gesturing to the preparations.

“New Year’s celebrations are a big deal for Comettrail,” Rael said. “We have to stay for them.”

“We do?” I asked.

I rarely paid much attention to the date, despite how prominently it was shown by my PipBeak (and by my PipBuck before it). In the Equestrian Wasteland, there wasn’t much difference in the days when the seasons never changed and the weather rarely did. The only time I really paid attention to the date was to compare the year with terminal entries I found to see how long ago they’d been made. Checking my PipBeak now, I saw that tomorrow was the last day of 1510, which held no meaning for me as a year other than to tell me that the War had ended 160 years ago and I’d left Vanhoover seven years ago. The end of one year and the start of the next held little meaning for me, but apparently it did for the griffins of Comettrail.

“Oh, yes,” Rael replied. “The festival will last all day tomorrow and through the night. It’s the biggest celebration in the Griffin Commonwealth! I thought for sure this year I wouldn’t be able to be here for it.”

Rael’s enthusiasm was so infectious that I relented from my plans to continue on to Distribution Station 12 the next day and instead stay for the celebrations. I always tried to keep myself moving in a timely manner, but I realized there was no reason for me to hurry back to Pleasure Coast. One day spent in revelry with the griffins of Comettrail wouldn’t change anything. We spent the night in the Rokkist mission, and the next day the festival began.

As far as celebrations went, my experiences had mostly involved ad hoc parties thrown together in the aftermath of great events, such as victory in battle. The only prepared celebration I’d been to had been for Gloria Delgado, and the way the Sunset Strip Dragons celebrated hadn’t exactly been to my tastes, with so much emphasis on bloodsports and indulgence. Comettrail’s New Year’s festivities were completely different. From the shores of the volcanic lake, the stalls, canopies, and decorations radiated out down the major streets to accommodate the entire city’s population. Griffins were packed into the plazas and walks surrounding the lake, wandering freely between the stalls that (astoundingly) charged nothing for their food, the stages where the musically inclined griffins shared their gifts, and the stands and roped-off areas where games were played. I was surrounded by griffins who stopped to share with friends and strangers what they thought of their past year.

At first, griffins gave me space, unsure what to make of a pony in their midst, but as the day went on, I found myself welcomed more and more into their conversations and activities. I had as much to reflect on as any of them; after all, a year ago I’d been a prisoner in the Grittish Isles. Much had changed in my life since then, as I’d spent most of the year in the Griffin Commonwealth, far from my homeland. I’d lost a foreleg, explored the northern and southern halves of the Commonwealth, traveled with scavengers, been rebuilt and enslaved by the Castle, ended the threat of the Dogs of War, and seen both New Pegasus and the Consortium and their conflict and peace. I’d learned how to make better use of my unicorn magic and how to fly a hopper. I’d made new friends along the way and picked up a traveling companion in Rael.

I was certainly in a better place than I had been a year ago, and, like many of the griffins around me, it made me want to reflect on the year to come. It wasn’t something I’d ever really done before, nor something that I’d ever seen others do. Trying to survive meant that one was never fully certain they’d be alive a year in the future, so one tended not to make long-term plans. The stability of the roosts, as fallen as they were from their Wartime status, allowed the griffins here to seriously reflect on such questions—ones to which I had no answers. I still hoped to find a permanent place to settle down and start a life that didn’t involve so much fighting for survival, but where would I find that and what would I do if I wasn’t constantly travelling? I still wanted to be reunited with Sage, but would that happen in the next year? We’d been apart for seven years already, and there was no telling when she’d ever be able to leave Manehattan or I’d be able to return to Equestria. Her last message conveyed by the crew of the Red Harvest had given me hope: that if she could find somepony to take her place as DJ Pon3, she could join me. However, the manner in which she’d taken over for the previous radio announcer had been abrupt, and I knew she’d want to make sure her successor had proper training before leaving Equestria’s only uplifting radio station in their hooves.

As the party carried on and I wandered around the lake taking in all the different sights and sounds, I realized that I was the only non-griffin taking part in the festivities; the zebras were nowhere to be seen. When Rael and I met again, he explained that though griffins used the Equestrian calendar, the zebras kept to their empire’s, whose year didn’t end for several more months. They would have their own celebrations at that time, inspired in some ways by the griffin festival, but greatly scaled down.

The festivities continued unabated into the night, until a horn sounded from across the lake once, twice, then thrice, each time causing more griffin conversations to fall silent. After a minute of silence, the horn blared again, accompanied by griffins shouting, “Ten!” With each blast, another number was shouted out, counting down, until at the end, the griffins yelled “Happy New Year!” The shout was accompanied by fireworks exploding in the air over the city, their dazzling displays reflected in the lake below. Griffins sang and embraced, and bands struck up raucous tunes. The whole festival descended into chaos as griffins went all out in celebration. Fireworks continued to light up the night, and the projected displays and banners on the surrounding buildings danced.

“Doc!” Rael called out as he found me in the crowd, “Happy New Year!”

“What’s this?” I asked as he pressed a clothbound book toward me.

“A gift! I thought you might like a journal to record your thoughts in a more physical way than your PipBeak!” Rael said as I took the journal in my magic.

All around us, I could see griffins exchanging gifts with each other.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to exchange gifts!” I shouted to be heard over the crowd.

“Of course not! It’s your first griffin New Year!” Rael laughed. “Next year, though!”

“Yeah,” I said, allowing myself to wholeheartedly believe I’d live through the coming year, “Next year!”

***

We understandably got a late start the following day, but still managed to make it to Distribution Station 12 before nightfall. It was a good thing I had my hopper; otherwise, getting to the distribution station would have been difficult, if not impossible. The stairs leading up to the station had fallen away, and the mountain path approaching it from behind had also crumbled in the years since the station had been built. Consequently, the station was uninhabited, and it was a snap to rebroadcast Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC from it. From what Rael told me, there wasn’t much in the Griffin Commonwealth to the southeast that it was broadcasting to, but it would help expand the range regardless and would provide a vital link to the next distribution station on my list.

DS-14 was next, located due west of DS-12. While the distribution station we’d just visited had been high in the mountains, this station looked down on a valley. Except, it wasn’t the Iron Valley. The mountains that bordered the Iron Valley to the south bordered this valley to the north, a valley that was completely cut off from the coast without flying or climbing mountains. According to Rael, it had once been farmland to feed the growing population of the Griffin Commonwealth and still remained largely fertile and mostly free of contamination by megaspell fallout. However, that made it contested territory between the griffins of Goldpeak far to the south and the various gangs and coalitions of raiders that also occupied the valley. It didn’t come as too great a shock, then, when Distribution Station 14 appeared to be occupied by raiders.

Unfortunately, their surprise at seeing an inbound hopper didn’t give them enough pause for me to land before they started shooting. My flight wobbled as I tried to steer the rotorcraft, protect its vital parts with magical shielding, and fire my battle rifle down toward them at the same time. Few of my shots hit their marks, but they at least convinced a few of the raiders to reconsider and gave me the time I needed to set down the hopper on the platform. As I jumped from the pilot seat, watching my head as the blades slowed their spinning, I threw a trio of grenades in the directions I’d seen griffins and was rewarded with several pips disappearing from FITS as I sought cover behind a large stack of sacks marked “Fertilizer.”

I tossed another grenade before jumping out and running toward a storage building. On the way, I cast ERSaTS and used my starscatter gun to take down a griffin missing half his beak, one with a sledgehammer whose head was belching flame from the back, and one covered in so many spikes I was surprised she hadn’t injured herself just by moving around. The storage building was filled not with parts to repair the distribution station, but with grain, and it absorbed the shots fired after me. Dust swirled in the air, and as raiders piled in through the door ahead of me, I retreated, leaving an incendiary grenade as I went. The building went up in flames as I fled out the door, immolating all those inside.

I bowled into a raider with a machete as I exited the building and pushed him over the edge of the distribution station’s platform, giving him no time to unfurl his wings before dropping out of sight. A group of raiders was charging from the main building now, and I cast ERSaTS and used it to take them down with shots from Big Iron that punched through their armor. I jumped behind a stack of weapons and ammunition crates as the surviving raiders returned fire. It was a poor place to take cover, and I paid the price as the shots set off the explosives stored within, sending me flying across the platform. Everything went silent for me, and I felt blood coming from my ears, but most of my body was shielded by the protective clothing I’d taken from the Castle, though I was definitely going to be sore later.

Taking no time to down a healing potion, I hurried behind another side building and pushed myself to levitate, slowly ascending to the roof. The griffins had fanned out to circle the building and come at me from two sides, but none of them thought to look up for a flightless opponent. I could feel the vibration as I fired my battle rifle in bursts to take each of them out until FITS was clear ahead of me.

I suddenly felt a weight fall awkwardly on my back and quickly spun around. The griffin I’d pushed off the platform had returned and was attempting to attack me from behind. He was unarmed for now, his machete sliding across the roof of the building—the claw he’d been holding it in was bloodied, and he’d stumbled into me without meaning to. Now that he was on top of me, though, he went for my neck. We rolled back and wrestled for a bit, but eventually I managed to get my claws close enough to him to extend my PipBeak’s blade attachment and take out his throat. As I pushed the body off me, I checked FITS again for hostile marks but found only a friendly, which was Rael hovering nearby with a shotgun held in his claws.

“Thanks for the help,” I told him after drinking a swig of healing potion to restore my eardrums.

“You would’ve died otherwise,” Rael said by way of explanation and discarded the shotgun, allowing it to fall by the dead griffin he’d taken it from.

He got that contemplative look I was beginning to recognize meant he’d want to talk later but wished to be left to his own thoughts for now, so I let him be and set about the task I’d come here to accomplish. Soon, Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC had a new broadcast range, and I’d checked off one more step on my trip back to Pleasure Coast.

***

The next day saw us reach Distribution Station 13. It was abandoned as far as habitation went but did seem to be used as storage by the Griffin Commonwealth’s Air and Land Corps for weapons and ammunition. We got in and out as quickly as possible, locking back up as we left. From DS-13 we headed north and slightly back east as we curved around the high mountain peaks toward the nearby roost. Stonewood was the name of the griffin city, and I saw it was a fitting one as we approached. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, since there was no city as far as I could tell, just a very sheer cliff face rearing over an uneven plateau. As we got closer, though, I saw that the ground below the peak was not ground at all, but the tops of enormous trees that had turned to stone. Signs became more apparent as we neared that these giant petrified trees had once been part of the mountain and had been chiseled out, leaving only the cliff I’d seen before of the original peak. The buildings of Stonewood had been either built upon the trees’ massive branches or chiseled out of their colossal trunks, and they were all very modest compared to the skyscrapers of Comettrail. The griffins here enjoyed a simple life and hadn’t changed since even before the War. The only indications that they had been involved at all were the signs in front of some of the buildings declaring them offices of Commonwealth government, belonging to one of the various corps. Rael and I intruded upon their lives only for a single night before moving on. I had the impression that my companion found them a bit odd but was too polite to say anything.

Only a quick flight away down in the Iron Valley was the settlement of Charity’s Reach, which, as luck would have it, was on the way to my next destination: Distribution Station 17. I wanted to check in and see how the town was doing, since it was the settlement after New Pegasus that I’d spent the most time at in the Iron Valley (though, given I’d only been there twice, that wasn’t saying much). It had been nearly three months since I’d been here last, and I wanted to speak to Geraldine again, if she was able to pull herself away from her work helping the griffins of the town.

When we arrived at Charity’s Reach, like last time, there was a different vibe in the air. This time, however, things had gone in the opposite direction and griffins seemed more dour. A wall had also been erected partway around the town, and guards stood sentry at distant intervals. Though it was still mid-morning, several shops along the main street were closed and everything seemed generally subdued.

“Hold it,” a griffin called out to Rael and me as we trotted through the settlement.

He landed in front of us, dressed as the other guards, not in a uniform but a strange set of robes not dissimilar from those worn by Rokkist priests. Except, I’d never seen a Rokkist cleric carrying a weapon (other than the brief moments Rael had picked one up to save me), and this griffin was armed with a shock baton at his side.

“There’s a donation of thirty caps per head per day for visitors to Charity’s Reach,” he announced and held out a claw.

“There was nothing like that when I came through here before,” I said when it became apparent the griffin was asking for me to give him a “donation”. It was not an uncommon scam for lowlifes in settlements to pull on new visitors, but I didn’t expect it in Charity’s Reach. I was fairly certain this was a grift meant to separate me from my caps, but given the other changes to the town, I couldn’t be certain.

“It’s been newly put in place by the priestess for the betterment of the settlement,” the griffin said, his claw still held out in expectation of caps being placed in it.

“Can I speak to Geraldine about this first?” I asked.

“You can’t,” he replied, and I frowned at him. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?” I asked incredulously.

“A fever swept through the town, and though she helped save others, she wasn’t so fortunate herself,” the griffin said mournfully. “Giselda is our priestess now, following in Geraldine’s footsteps.”

“By requiring visitors to pay a toll?” I asked in disbelief.

“It’s a donation,” the guard repeated, “For the betterment of the settlement.”

“Can I speak to Giselda, then?” I asked.

“Once … you’ve made your donation,” the guard insisted.

Grouchily, I measured out sixty caps from my saddlebags and handed them over to the griffin. I still didn’t know if the “donation” requirement was genuine, but I was going to get to the bottom of it. The guard let us move on now as he added the caps to a container at his waist, and I charged ahead to the Church of Rok. The area in front of the roundhouse was empty, though I hand’t spent enough time here in the morning to know if that’d changed. What had changed was that the Church of Rok seemed to have expanded to more than just the two bays of the roundhouse it had occupied last time. It was now the only occupant of the building, and things seemed busy within.

“Are you Giselda?” I asked a griffin with a white coat and green feathers wearing the robes typical of a Rokkist priestess.

“I am she,” she answered as she looked up from a stack of papers and handed them off to an acolyte. “How can I help you, my child?”

“I was just shaken down as I entered town,” I said.

“Yes, many visitors have found our new donation requirements to be unexpected,” Giselda said, bobbing her head.

“I thought the Church of Rok emphasized voluntary giving,” I said.

“Yes, in general, that is the agreed-upon interpretation of Rok’s teachings,” Giselda said as she sat down on a bench and motioned Rael and I to sit as well. “However, Geraldine, may the soil rest easy upon her, started something here that has borne great fruit.”

“When I advised her, it was to get Dres and Gellen to give their fair share,” I said, “Not to seek a cap anywhere it could be found.”

“So, you must be the Doc I’ve heard about,” Giselda said smoothly. “I’ve been told Geraldine mentioned you often. You inspired her to take action, to enforce our beliefs, and when I saw and heard how that had improved Charity’s Reach, I had to do some deep thinking myself. With mandatory tithing, we can ensure everygriffin gives their best to the community, and we can accomplish so much more. Donations allow us to undertake projects the church never could have before, such as building a town wall to protect us from beasts and raiders. We always had the resources, but only now can they be put to a proper purpose. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I suppose, but I don’t know,” I said. I looked to Rael for backup, but like with Geraldine, he was silent and intimidated by the presence and authority of a full-fledged priestess. “The settlement doesn’t seem happier.”

“No, they wouldn’t at first, just as you were unhappy at being asked to contribute, but it’s for their good. The poor souls who were begging for scraps before are much happier now, though. They’re fed, they’re clothed, and they’re working for the betterment of the settlement. Of course those who had the most to lose personally will be upset with being told to give it up, but they’ll see in time that it was the right thing,” Giselda preached. When she’d finished, another griffin padded up to her and whispered something in her ear. “I have to go now, so much to do, but do try to see Charity’s Reach from a better perspective. May you bless and be blessed by those around you.”

As Rael repeated the phrase verbatim and Giselda turned to leave, I wondered if my companion had been right about his concerns the first time we’d come here. Perhaps it was for the greater good, but how far was too far to go for that ideal. Who decided what was justified, and who stopped the one who made those decisions from going to far?

***

There was one last stop before Castoway, the distribution station that would spread the radio stations to that sinking city. We arrived the day after our brief visit to Charity’s Reach, and I spotted some movement on the platform from a distance. By the time Rael and I arrived at the distribution station, however, it was empty. I carefully set down the hopper and waited for its blades to slow to a halt before stepping out and scanning the area, my rifle at the ready. The platform looked abandoned, but it had been kept clean and fixed up, with signs of repairs and repainting. There were also several long planters in the open space between the storage and bunkhouses and the main facility, where nothing grew currently, but the soil appeared tended. On FITS, I could see five marks in the main building as we approached, but they weren’t yet hostile. I wasn’t sure what to do as I reached the main door. Clearly this wasn’t a raider-infested station (unless they were incredibly deceptive), so I didn’t want to go in with guns blazing. Instead, I decided to knock on the door.

“Hello?” I called as I rapped my mechanical knuckles against the metal. “Anyone there?”

“Go away!” a gruff voice responded from the other side of the door. “Get out of here if you want to live another day!”

The voice was trying to project confidence, but I could tell he was really afraid. The threat wasn’t exactly idle, but he wasn’t threatening me because he wanted to kill me; he was threatening me because he wanted me to leave so he wouldn’t need to kill me.

“Listen, I’m not here to make any trouble,” I tried to assure him. “I just want to take a look at this station’s controls to rebroadcast radio signals.”

“Sure you do,” he said in disbelief. “And I saw the megaspells hit Griffonstone.”

“D-did you?” I asked, uncertain if he was still being sarcastic. “I can’t see through the door, so I don’t know if you’re a ghoul or not.”

“I’m no ghoul!” he spat back. “But you’d need to be to survive what I’ll do to you if you don’t leave right now!”

“I’m Doc. Maybe you’ve heard of me, or Doc Silverarm. Trust me, I mean you no harm,” I said as I noticed the pip on FITS beginning to waver.

“Never heard of you! Now get out of here and leave my family alone!” the voice yelled, and the accompanying mark changed to hostile.

“Sir!” Rael interjected before he could start shooting. “I can vouch for everything this pony said. I am an acolyte of Rok.”

A long silence stretched out as we stood frozen in place, me with my eyes on FITS, until the pip switched back to neutral.

“Step back from the door,” the voice said at last.

Rael and I shuffled backwards. After a few seconds, the door inched open. A shotgun barrel came through first, and then a griffin’s eye peered out. After another moment, the door opened wider, showing a rough-looking griffin with brown, nearly black fur and white feathers. He was wearing common settler’s garb with scuffed-up combat armor overtop and a wide-brimmed hat on his head.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said in astonishment. “It really is a pony and a preacher.”

“Acolyte,” Rael gently corrected him.

“As I was saying, I don’t mean to intrude or be a pain, but can we get to the control room to set up some rebroadcasts?” I asked. “Just that, and we’ll be out of your feathers.”

“Leave your weapons and you can come in,” the griffin said, still a little touchily, but he seemed to believe now that I meant him no harm.

I left my battle rifle, revolver, starscatter gun, and grenades outside in a garden bed, then let the griffin look through my saddlebags to be sure I hadn’t kept anything. He didn’t search Rael, trusting that a Rokkist acolyte would have no lethal weapons on him. We were then allowed to enter the station, led by Garret, as the griffin introduced himself. I saw no sign of Garret’s family, but I could tell where they’d scurried off to by watching FITS. While I set up the rebroadcasting of Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC, Rael chatted up our host, and I half listened, learning that the other four marks I’d seen were his wife, daughters, and son. He relaxed some in talking to Rael, but never put his shotgun away entirely. I could understand his jumpiness living in a place that was a likely target for raiders to turn into a sky keep, especially with three young griffins to look after, so I didn’t try to push my luck and stay any longer after accomplishing my goal. Garret saw us off without complaint, and soon we were back in the sky, headed toward the coast.

***

I had to be careful at Castoway. The last time I was here, I’d been under the control of Orthros’s Justice Protocol and had wreaked havoc on the city, dropping warlords and their minions as if they were bugs to be swatted. I did look different now, with my original horn, no wings upon my back, and my foreleg once again replaced by a griffin prosthetic, but there was still a chance I could be recognized. Playing it safe, I landed the hopper outside of town and Rael scouted ahead to see what the situation was in the city.

When he returned, it was with an invitation from Daff to enter and land atop the Castoway Port Authority Hospital. We hadn’t parted on exactly the best of terms last time, given that Daff had still been critical of the chaos I’d inflicted as Justice, but I trusted her and her judgement enough to fly in and meet her. The hospital she’d directed me to was a tall, blocky tower in the center of the city, with a helipad on the roof that was perfect for landing my hopper. As I circled, I noticed that there were more ponies than just Daff on the roof. When I landed, they held back while Daff approached. The unicorn had picked up some new attire since we’d last met, a duster and a pair of shades, but her overlong forelock still fell over one of the lenses.

“Well, you’re back, you old so-and-so,” Daff commented as I climbed out of the hopper. “I see you kept the coat.”

“There wasn’t much left of the old one,” I said as I twisted to show where the remnants of the doctor’s coat were stitched to the new one I’d taken from the Castle. “I see you have a new coat yourself.”

“When one’s a leader, I’ve found it helps to be distinctive,” Daff replied.

“You’re a leader now?” I asked in surprise.

“After you headed off a few months ago, somepony had to clean up the mess you left. I guess I did more’n my fair share, and some ponies started looking to me for direction. Then a couple freelancers and I got to thinking and decided we could do a better job than a bunch of overly theatrical warlords at running this place,” Daff explained with pride. “Since then it’s been expand, expand, expand. We’ve taken over more than a third of the city and we’re finally bringing some sanity back to this place.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” I said, happy for her.

“Don’t think you can get off the hook completely,” Daff said. “Sure, in the end maybe this’ll all turn out well, but you still hurt this city more than I’ve ever seen it hurt by the warlords and their crazy antics. I may have some favors to ask of you in the future to make amends.”

“If I’m around, I’ll do my best to oblige,” I told her.

While we were chatting, one of the other ponies on the roof approached, a stallion wearing combat barding—one of Daff’s bodyguards, I assumed.

“Ma’am, it’s back again,” he said conspiratorially.

“What’s back again?” Daff asked with minor annoyance.

“The … submarine,” the stallion said, hesitating as he looked at me.

“A submarine?” I asked curiously, earning a frown from the stallion.

“Apparently there’s a zebra submarine that’s been poking around the harbor for the last few days, and apparently it’s my problem now every time it sticks its conning tower out of the water,” Daff said in exasperation.

“Is it the Red Harvest?” I asked excitedly.

“I don’t know that anypony’s thought to identify it,” Daff replied. “Usually they just shoot at it and it goes away. Why, do you know a zebra submarine by that name? Also, why do you know a zebra submarine?”

“It’s a long story, but they might have news for me,” I said as I hurried back to the hopper. “Is it still in the harbor?”

Daff turned to the stallion who’d brought her the news, whose only reply was a shrug before returning to where her other bodyguard was waiting. I saw the second bodyguard pull out a radio as I took off, but I wasn’t planning to wait. If Captain Zaliski was trying to get me news of Equestria, I needed to get to him before the attacks from the shore convinced him to give up.

As I flew past the sunken piers and the remains of old cargo ships, I spotted the Red Harvest in the water. It was dangerous to fly the hopper so close to the surface, but I didn’t want to take the time to land, find a boat, and convince whoever was in charge of it to saile me out to the submarine. Instead, I flew the hopper all the way out and hovered over the Red Harvest’s conning tower until it opened and a zebra ghoul stuck its head out. After they shouted something down in words that were lost to the sound of my rotors and which I wouldn’t have understood anyway, the submarine surfaced and allowed me to land on its hull, atop the hatches that once covered megaspell-tipped missiles. Captain Zaliski himself climbed down onto the hull to meet me as the rotors of my hopper spun down.

“Doc, we had nearly given up hope of finding you,” he rasped as he trotted across the damp metal. “They said you had gone south, so we thought to try Castoway again, but it seems the ponies here have not forgotten the War. We were just about to slip away. It was good you came when you did.”

“Glad to see you, too. Any particular reason you were seeking me out?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, this,” Zaliski said before reaching into the remains of his uniform and pulling out an envelope wrapped in plastic to protect it from water and his rotting gums and teeth. “It is a letter from your Sage,” he said cheerfully as I gratefully took it from him. “We have to thank you, Doc.”

“You do?” I asked in surprise, forcing myself to pull my attention away from the letter.

“You have given the crew hope, and a purpose,” Zaliski said. “Heh, maybe a small purpose compared to our responsibilities during the War, but an important one, and something to keep our attention. We are all pulling for you and your beloved, and wish to keep our wits long enough to see you reunited.”

“Thank you,” I said, touched by the ghoul’s words. “I hope for that, too.”

“Keep yourself alive, Doc,” Zaliski cautioned me. “You have more to hope for than us.”

***

I flew high over the wastes after leaving Castoway, in more ways than one. Sage’s letter had been (almost) everything I could have wanted. She’d taken an apprentice to train to take her place as DJ Pon3, and promised she’d join me in the Griffin Commonwealth soon. What exactly “soon” meant, I had no idea, but I was expecting months rather than weeks or days. There was still a lot of work to be done before she could leave Manehattan. Yet, to have the promise that we would be reunited, and that there were concrete steps being taken that made it a matter of “when” and not “if”, made my heart soar.

At the same time, Captain Zaliski’s words had cautioned me. My life thus far had mostly been one of life-or-death situations. Now that I knew Sage and I would be reunited, it was clearer than ever to me that I had to change something. If I died before she reached the Commonwealth, what would that accomplish other than to aggrieve her? I’d tried before to settle down into a simpler, less dangerous life, but I’d always been pulled back into danger. This time, I was fully resolved to a stay at my house in Pleasure Coast until Sage joined me.

Airborne as I was, I didn’t have to deal with the myriad beasts of the wastes that I’d encountered on the way south, nor the Dogs of War. I did touch down once to take advantage of the trick I’d learned from the scavengers to get fuel from the automated filling stations using Commonwealth guilders, filling up my hopper and the spare tanks in the storage racks to keep me flying for a while yet. I did see a few clans of scavengers down below, tearing through the wastes on their road-beasts. I was glad that with the threat of the Dogs of War removed, they were able to return to their lifestyle.

I didn’t fly directly back to Pleasure Coast, for there were two more places I wanted to stop along the way. In the mountains east of the wastes was Distribution Station 8, a station mostly stripped of goods, but intact enough that I was able to rebroadcast Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the wastes, where a gap had otherwise existed in the coverage.

Nearby was also the roost of Underpeak. Rael and I stopped in for a day so that I could satiate my exploratory curiosity, and it was well worth the visit. I’d never have located the roost if I hadn’t found a crumbling mountain road to follow that snaked through and around the mountains before ending at a large cave entrance on the north slope of a mount. Underpeak was built in a massive set of grottos within the mountain, the largest so big that skyscrapers had been built within—though the attribution of skyscraper seemed inappropriate, since what the buildings were scraping was the roof of the cave. Some of them even went all the way up, acting as pillars. The entire city seemed to live in an eerie twilight where the majority of illumination was artificial, even in the middle of the day. From what I could tell, this didn’t change at night either, and griffins lived on different overlapping schedules that together went around the clock.

And so concluded my long journey south to the Iron Valley and back north to where my life in the Griffin Commonweath had started. I’d been away for over four months, and it was good to be back. Summer Sunrise was surprised to see me again, as was the griffin who’d sold me my home in the northern heights and cleared it out thinking I’d died in the wastes. Once I got that mess sorted out and moved back in, things settled into a normal rhythm. Summer Sunrise still welcomed me to work in the clinic and I took odd jobs around town, but with the influx of cash from the Commonwealth Crooner as a reward for spreading his station to the southern half of the Commonwealth, I didn’t have any real need to work at the moment. Rael continued to follow me around and observe, insisting that he needed a full picture of my life, but I secretly suspected he’d soon return to his missionary work since my life had become much more boring. I was living up to my resolution to live a peaceful existence and stay out of trouble until Sage could join me. It lasted a week.

I was making my way back to the Hope Drive Clinic after spending some time in the Library of Arcana when I first heard the thrumming in the air. Soon, every pony and griffin were looking to the sky, trying to determine the source. It came into view as I trotted through the city’s main plaza. Hovering in from the northwest was a great metal airship, and it was one I recognized. How many days had I looked up at that great armored hulk bristling with weapons emplacements and able to house an army? They’d gotten it to work and decided to use it, evident by the thrumming engines along its hull and the fact that it had followed me here.

“Ponies and griffins of the Commonwealth!” speakers mounted on the airship’s belly blared as it continued to advance. “Please remain calm and do not interfere! We are here for the safeguarding of technology and the cleansing of your land of taint! Do not attempt to resist or obstruct our holy mission, and you will not be fired upon! We are the Steel Rangers!”

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Equestria Cometh – Deal with the Steel Ranger invasion of the Commonwealth.
Alchemistry +2 (63)
Athletics +2 (43)
Barter +2 (124)
Electronics +5 (60)
Enchanting +3 (34)
Energy Weapons +1 (106)
Explosives +1 (118)
Lockpick +1 (114)
Medicine +4 (127)
Pilot +30 (60)
Repair +10 (124)
Small Guns +4 (147)
Survival +12 (103)
Unarmed +1 (96)