Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

Chapter Twenty-Six: Deluge of Coins

It’s remarkable, really, how little what griffins value has changed after the megaspells, at least in terms of wealth and transactional power. You would expect food and clean water—necessities—to be the most valuable commodities, the only things worth trading. Maybe that’s the case in the old zebra or pony lands. They were hit much harder than the Commonwealth, and nothing grows. I can’t say myself; I’ve never been there. No, it seems that in many places, where a new currency has emerged, it is bottlecaps of all things. And yes, the Commonwealth guilder is no longer valued, not for lack of trying on Grand Marshal Gallus’s part to prop it up. The guilder was already a vastly inflated and little respected currency before the megaspells, though, so I can’t really call that a change. One must question the wisdom of continuing to value the main, constant currency, however. Why should we griffins still value gold and silver? They provide no real value in this post-megaspell world, so why do griffins still covet them? Like bottlecaps or guilders, they can be used to purchase important things, but where do they get the value that seems so intrinsic? If we were all to decide not to accept them as valid currency, would they suddenly become worthless? It’s a hypothetical I pose; everygriff seems to accept the value of precious metals without question. Even calling them precious metals betrays this. In a post-megaspell world, it seems Equestrian gold and Imperial silver still have the power to change our lives, even if the countries that turned them into coins are long dead. It’s a reality we must live with and accept, at least until we can agree on a better way. Everygriff hungers for gold, not least Grand Marshal Gallus. With a suitable hoard, perhaps he could unite the Griffin Commonwealth as he wishes; maybe that’s why he has his guards and scribes out in the mountains, away from Shearpoint. With a suitable hoard, what could somegriff with fewer pretentions of power do?

Two days had passed since Lurk’s and my unsuccessful meeting with Grand Marshal Gideon. Following that disaster, we’d gone our separate ways, though more in a metaphorical sense than a physical one. Both of us were still in Shearpoint, just pursuing different leads. Lurk was trying to contact griffin mercenary companies to pay them directly to help liberate Pleasure Coast, but given what I’d heard ages ago from Gabby’s Grenadiers, she wasn’t likely to have much success with that in Shearpoint. Any mercenary company based in this city had already cozied up to the grand marshal too much to hope to break free from his influence or disobey his will, and were only one step away from becoming part of the Air Corps or Land Corps rather than independent contractors.

I was pursuing a different track. With Grand Marshal Gideon uncooperative, I’d thought at first to look to the other major armed factions in the Commonwealth. New Pegasus and the Consortium might have been willing to challenge the Steel Rangers, but after their war, I doubted they were in a state to do so. The Dogs of War were an intriguing prospect, but pulling them away from the Castle would leave Orthros unguarded, and I shuddered at the thought of leaving them to their mischief. If Daff had succeeded in uniting Castoway, they might have the ponypower. Even so, going against the Steel Rangers would be risky, and what incentive could induce them to cross the wastes to help Pleasure Coast?

Putting aside the possibility of recruiting someone else for the moment, I’d begun to pursue a new idea. Something Gideon had said compelled me to return to a stray thought I’d let lie dormant for a while. I was flipping through the Book of Rok, trying to piece together the things I’d noticed on my initial reading and form a coherent whole. There was an additional meaning hidden in the pages, and I believed I’d figured out what it was.

“Rael, take a look at this,” I called him over, and the griffin flapped across the rooftop we’d occupied for the time being.

“What are you thinking?” Rael asked, hopeful that I’d had a religious experience reading his holy book.

“I think Rok and his friends found von Plume’s treasure,” I stated.

“You’re reading the passages where he speaks about Grand Marshal Gallus’s occupation and destruction of von Plume’s manor?” Rael asked as he peered down at the two copies of the Book of Rok propped open in front of me, one pristine and recently printed, the other old and badly damaged. “Many griffins reading the Book of Rok for the first time have thought the same as you, that after these passages Rok and his friends will pursue the treasure, but there is no more mention of it.”

“Not explicitly,” I said, flipping through the book to pages I’d bookmarked. “But there are plenty of times after this when he writes down his thoughts on the corrupting influence of wealth, griffin fixation on gold, or the good that could be done if he had more resources. He seems to have been deliberating with himself, trying to decide whether to pursue von Plume’s treasure or leave it hidden.”

“And you think he decided to pursue it?” Rael asked dubiously.

“Yes,” I replied, “But not until near the end of his life. Let me ask you this: where did the money come from to establish the Blessed Town of Dawn?”

“Nobody knows, but it’s not like some great fortune on the level of von Plume’s hoard was required.”

“But it was certainly much more than Rok would have had,” I countered. “Perhaps if he solicited a large donation from each of his followers, they might have been able to afford all the supplies and materials needed to build Dawn, but though he talks at length about the need for such funds and how interactions in griffin society are measured in monetary terms, he doesn’t say anything about how he intends to get the funds needed.

“I think that Rok found von Plume’s treasure, but wary of how the wealth might change him or make his new town a target for stronger parties, only took what he needed. Then, and I’m not sure why—maybe to give others the chance to find it as well, maybe to make sure it wasn’t lost again after he was gone—he put clues in his writings on how to find it. There’s a section here where he breaks from narrative and spends a lot of time reflecting on seemingly random topics, but I don’t think they’re unrelated at all.”

“Rok does that often; you may be seeing things where they aren’t,” Rael commented, though his resolve seemed to be wavering.

“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted. “But these passages start immediately after Rok leaves all but his closest friends behind at where Dawn would eventually be established, and then the narrative resumes with them miraculously able to build the town. And the sketches he made in the margins during that time; they’re not just of the Commonwealth, there are images of furniture, fixtures, and art. I think Rok is recalling what he saw in von Plume’s manor.”

“If you’re right, then where is von Plume’s treasure?” Rael asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll need to retrace Rok’s steps to find it, starting where he began: von Plume’s manor.”

“It was destroyed,” Rael objected.

“Yes, but I don’t think lost,” I said as I flipped back to the section I’d originally been reading. “Rok writes about Grand Marshal Gallus’s guards and scribes up in the mountains just before he sneaks into the manor himself. Look here.”

I used my griffin claw to point at a sketch of a tripod-mounted camera, accompanied by notes on how they were operated and Rok’s thoughts on the imperfect nature of photography in preserving reality.

“He never says it explicitly, but it’s possible—even likely—that Gallus had his lackeys photograph everything within von Plume’s manor before demolishing it. If the grand marshal didn’t want to give up on searching for the treasure but wanted to make sure nobody else could do so, it makes sense.”

“I suppose it does, but how does that help us?” Rael asked.

“Those photographs probably still exist somewhere, and if I can look at them, maybe I can figure out what Rok’s clues mean. If we find that treasure, then Grand Marshal Gideon will have no choice but to accept it as payment for liberating Pleasure Coast. If he doesn’t, we can buy his army out from under him instead. With luck, the photographs are here in Shearpoint, in the Hall of Records.”

“And without luck?” Rael ventured.

“Well, they’re either lost or worse, in Gideon’s possession.”

“Let’s … check the Hall of Records first,” Rael said.

***

Finding such things in the Hall of Records was, of course, easier said than done. The building that had received the title had once been a contract office, and the publicly accessible portion was quite small. Some volumes of griffin law (almost all contract law) one could walk in and read, but everything else required asking a griffin who peered out from a barred window to fetch them, and she was none too friendly. It wasn’t like I was going to share with her exactly what I was looking for anyway, since that would surely raise alarms and bring the grand marshal down on me. Our first visit to the Hall of Records was just to “case the joint”, as I’d seen it referred to in some of the cheap Wartime griffin heist novels lying around.

That night, we returned to the Hall of Records. The back of the building led out onto a courtyard between buildings inaccessible even from the air due to a mesh stretched between the walls to keep griffins from flying in. With Rael hovering over the mesh, however, I teleported myself down into the courtyard without any problems. The back door was locked, but I saw to that with my lockpicking skills (wanting to conserve my magic for later rather than try teleporting again). As I’d hoped, the griffins trusted entirely in the strength of their locks, bars, and mesh, and hadn’t posted any guards within the building, so I encountered nothing on FITS other than Rael and the occasional griffin passing by on the street.

Several more locked doors later, I found my way by the light of my PipBeak’s lamp and the ambient glow of my horn to the restricted section for grand marshals’ records. There was nothing here for Grand Marshal Gideon, so I presumed they entrusted only past records here, keeping their own safe at home. Scanning the rows of file cabinets, I found the section belonging to Gallus and set to work sifting through the stacks of folders and pages. In one manila envelope, I struck gold (figuratively and—I hoped soon—literally). A large stack of glossy photographs was contained within, and illuminating them with my PipBeak showed exactly what I wanted to see. The photos depicted the main hall of a griffin manor house crowded was excessive bric-a-brac. The attached reports confirmed my assumptions; these were photos of von Plume’s manor taken before its demolition. Quickly, I used my PipBeak to snap photos of each of them and placed the folder back in the cabinet, not willing to risk being caught with confidential records on my person. As I left, I redid all the locks and rejoined Rael, and we flapped off into the night.

***

What followed was an attempt to reassemble the photos into a useful map of von Plume’s manor and compare what could be seen in them with the points I’d marked off as potential references by Rok. Working blind as I had been, there were, of course, some things that I’d missed on my first attempt and some things that didn’t seem to line up after all, but Rael had to admit that there was something to my theory and was soon as into deciphering the clues as I was.

I’d suspected that there was something significant about the site of the Blessed Town of Dawn, but wasn’t sure how it fit in until I’d seen the photographs of von Plume’s manor. It was difficult to get the full effect from just two dimensions (I found myself in agreement with Rok over the inadequacy of photos in capturing reality more than once), but as we mapped it out, it became clear that Griselda von Plume had organized her home to replicate the eastern end of the Iron Valley. Rael was the one who realized that, more familiar with it than I was. Neither of us had any trouble identifying the meaning of the obelisk that was set into the tile of the hall. It was not covered in carvings done by Rok like the one that had once stood at the center of Dawn, but it was identical in every other respect. When we realized that, as well as how some nearby items related to Rok’s writings, we set out from Shearpoint immediately.

Later, as he prepared for the battle that would take his life, Rok had written that the town had been named Dawn because it was where they had looked to find their way. The Rokkists had an explanation for what he’d meant by that, and perhaps they were right—Rok often did say multiple things with the same words—but Rael and I had discovered another meaning. The trail to von Plume’s treasure began at the obelisk that now sat atop the Eurus, but its first step depended upon following the sun at dawn on a certain day. The clues were there in von Plume’s manor, but Rok had made them clearer (while still remaining obscure enough that most would miss them). Most entries in his book were not dated, but the day he had left to seek von Plume’s treasure was, and we had barely enough time to make it to New Pegasus … if we flew.

My hopper still stranded in Pleasure Coast, I purchased a new one (that I’d previously helped fix up during my last stay in Shearpoint) from Guthrie, and we were off. All through our time away from Pleasure Coast, I’d tried to stay up to date on what was happening there through Radio PC. Shortly after leaving Shearpoint, however, the Commonwealth Crooner went silent. Honestly, it had been a miracle that he’d managed to avoid the Steel Rangers’ wrath for so long. I assumed they’d broken into his station and done away with him, but a few days later, as Rael and I were flying over Lake City, his voice resumed with a completely different tone. The Commonwealth Crooner now urged the population of Pleasure Coast and the Griffin Commonwealth to comply with the Steel Rangers and espoused their position. To be forced to spew their propaganda might have been a worse fate for the Crooner than death.

Rael and I arrived in New Pegasus with only a day to spare. The city was surprisingly sedate, but given that they were about as far physically as one could get in the Commonwealth from Pleasure Coast, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. My backup plan of trying to convince them to fight the Steel Rangers seemed a distant chance in that light, unless the Steel Rangers’ mission in the Commonwealth turned out to be the eradication of New Pegasus. It’s not that the possibility was unlikely, given the technology they possessed, but I doubted the Executive Council would be convinced by supposition alone. Also, I’d probably never be able to go over their heads and take my concerns directly to President Snowmane again.

The next day was the Twenty-Fifth of Twilight, by the Equestrian calendar, but Griselda von Plume and Rok had both marked the date by the griffin reckoning, Fifty-Sixth of Q1. To ensure we didn’t miss our chance, Rael and I were up well before sunrise. In the predawn twilight, we made our way up to the monument to Rok, his original followers, and the Blessed Town of Dawn on the deck of the Eurus. According to Rael, the obelisk at its center stood exactly over the same place it had once been planted in the ground; I hoped he was right. Like Rok and his companions had before, Rael and I awaited the coming of Celestia’s sun at the obelisk, keeping a close eye out for when that first ray of light peeked over the eastern mountains from the obelisk’s peak. It was a bit awkward given that I had no wings, so Rael had to lift me up so that I could hold my PipBeak ready to snap a photo the moment dawn came. As the sun cast its golden rays across the snow-covered peaks, I lined up the obelisk’s tip with where the light met the horizon and captured the moment as best as technology could. That task done, we had the first destination on the path to von Plume’s treasure and were ready to set out.

***

One thing that I’ve noticed about griffins is that we tend to be fiercely individualistic. Not that there is anything wrong with being an individual; if there were, I’d be one of the worst. Everygriffin should be unique and treasure what it is that makes them distinct from the (now not so great) mass of other griffins. But that doesn’t mean they should insist on doing everything alone, or be selfish and consider only themselves. I’d have never gotten to where I am, ascending such heights, without the help of Ginny and Grimm. The three of us have gotten far together. Three: such a strong number. Put two griffins together and you have opponents, so you’d think adding another would make things even worse. In some cases you may be right, but instead you have a third option, a third way. So many griffins never stop to look past the ends of their beaks, or refuse to turn their heads from anything other than exactly where they’re pointed. However, if we can find where our gazes all intersect, that common point between us, that’s where we ought to go. All of us have strength in our differences, but together we can find something even stronger, without even the need to give up our differences, so long as we don’t make them irreconcilable.

***

“It should be here, right?” Rael asked uncertainly as he circled over the snow.

It had taken us most of the day to reach this point, but we’d made it up through the mountains to where Celestia’s sun had dawned that morning. I was sure we’d find something here to point our way along the path to von Plume’s treasure, but there was nothing of note, or at least nothing that I expected. Based on the photographs of von Plume’s manor and the next passage written by Rok after departing on the quest for the treasure, I’d hoped to find something akin to three statues of griffins pointing the way. Instead, all we’d found was snow. I used my magic to conjure heat and clear away patches, and Rael dug with his claws, but there was nothing under the snow except for more snow and bare rock. It wasn’t like there was more snow here now than when Rok had come, since it was the same time of year, so I felt increasingly that digging would get us nowhere. Whatever we were meant to find here should have been visible, but there was nothing. Rael and I even tried flying higher to get a larger view of the area, but nothing stuck out.

“I don’t understand,” I said as I cast my eyes around the snowfield. “This is definitely where dawn began.”

“Maybe we had the date wrong. Calendars may have gotten off track since the megaspells fell,” Rael suggested.

“Not a PipBeak’s calendar,” I said as I displayed my foreleg-mounted computer. Although, my trust in it mostly came from the vaunted reliability of the PipBuck, and I knew this was a knock-off version.

“We can’t wait another year if we got it wrong,” Rael surmised.

“Even if we didn’t line things up perfectly, we should be close,” I said as I took another turn to survey our snowclad surroundings. “Everything else was exactly the same as with von Plume and Rok. Same date, same time, same location, same obelisk…”

“What?” Rael asked as he realized I’d trailed off.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!” I exclaimed in exasperation. “The obelisk is in the same location as it was before, but not the same height. We saw dawn earlier than Rok would have because we were on top of the Eurus.”

“So, did we miss it, then?” Rael asked.

“I hope not,” I replied as I ran (as best I could in the deep snow) to where I’d landed my hopper. “We should still be close, in the grand scheme of things. If we were on the ground, then the sun would have risen somewhere in … that direction.”

Rael flapped off in the direction I’d pointed while I fired up my hopper, and soon I was accompanying him. It took some searching, and it was dusk by the time we at last found what we’d expected. Three spurs of stone, roughly resembling beaks, stuck out from a crumbling cliff. They pointed to the northwest, across the Iron Valley to where the mountains were already in shadow. With no way to pick out details of where we were to go next, we hunkered down to wait out the night atop the frigid peak.

***

The pre-megaspell world was, as far as we can tell, a bipolar one. Equestria on one side, the Zebra Empire on the other, and our Griffon Commonwealth a minor player sandwiched in between. The great powers of the world now lie utterly in ruin, and the Commonwealth a crumbling husk of its former self. What, I wonder, has become of the other nations and races that inhabit our world? Could they all be in the same sorry state as we griffins? The minotaurs are brought to mind, a race both strong of body and with uncanny powers of persuasion. They say a minotaur’s mouth could call forth a stream of wealth. Granted, that was mostly intended as a warning to follow the gold to its source to find if you were being fooled by one of the bull-men, but it seems there is some truth to it. Perhaps those who said it didn’t realize the hidden meaning, that we can find great value in the words of one different from us, whether they meant it for our good or not.

***

Shortly after dawn, Rael and I proceeded to determine our next destination. The “beaks” looked rather precarious to climb upon, so I did what I should have back in New Pegasus; I loaned Rael my PipBeak so that he could take photos himself without having to carry me. I stayed behind where there was little chance of falling down the mountain while my griffin friend stretched himself out on the spurs of rock and took photos of where they were pointed. Once we had all three, we compared them to find the common point between them.

After that, it was a simple matter of flying across the Iron Valley to our destination. The “beaks” had pointed us toward where a spur of mountains jutted out into the valley as it turned sharply north. Not terribly far north of Distribution Station 11, we spotted where we were to go. The mountain had been leveled off at one point to form an observation ledge. There were trailing gondola cables, rusty and twisted guardrails, and a few coin-operated binoculars for long-distance observation. The snow here had mostly been cleared by the wind, and we could see embossed into the stone the seal of von Plume. I wondered if she’d built this as a failed attempt to draw pony tourism in the Iron Valley or specifically for her treasure hunt. I supposed we’d probably never know, and set about searching for the next clue.

Rael’s suggestion that we try the binoculars was what exposed it ultimately. I had to fiddle with the mechanisms to get them to work since I had no Equestrian Bits to insert (those all lost to the Steel Rangers before I’d ever come to the Commonwealth), but I did manage to make them functional again. Sweeping the sights around the valley, Rael latched onto distant rock formations that vaguely resembled the head of a minotaur. He was really getting into the search at this point, though I suspected his investment was more in retracing the steps of his religion’s prophet than in finding the treasure. It was soon night again, but we’d set out in the morning for the minotaur’s mouth to the north—where the Iron Valley ended, but our trail did not.

***

We all need something to fix our eyes on to keep us from losing our way, or losing ourselves. A goal, a truth, even a fellow griffin will suffice. The danger each of us face is become too wrapped up in ourselves, so that we see nothing of what is outside of us and lose where we are. It’s easy to wander, and I have wandered in my time. Am I wandering now, though? No, though I walk in darkness, I am guided by the lights that lay out my path ahead, unmissable, undeniable. I know where it is that I must go and what it is I must do.

***

The minotaur’s mouth, unrecognizable for what it was once we were up close, led to a twisting cave system with constantly splitting and reconnecting passages. Near the entrance, there was equipment that had once belonged to a mine, but judging by the state of the exterior and the posted signs, the mine had been closed even before the megaspells fell. We were at the northernmost end of Iron Valley, where the mountains closed in and railroad ended, but there was still a path to follow.

At this point, we were entirely reliant on Rok’s writings, since we hadn’t been able to piece together the photos of von Plume’s manor adequately to cross-reference this part of the path. It soon became apparent what Rok’s clues meant, though: the mine, being abandoned, had no power and was pitch black. However, there were lights with their own independent power sources placed distantly from each other, usually only when they were needed to know which way to turn when passages branched. With my PipBeak’s lamp and my horn, we weren’t in complete darkness, but I still felt it was closing in … or maybe that was just the sense of the mountains looming over me.

It was difficult to keep our bearings in the tunnels, but we seemed to be generally headed north and slightly upward. After more than a day trotting through the passages, following the lights, we came to the longest stretch of darkness yet. I began to worry that we’d gone down the wrong passage and gotten lost, especially when we reached a crossroads without any indication of which way to go. Beginning to panic, I switched off my PipBuck’s lamp to get any indication of light, only to realize that I’d become used to the blue glow of the trail we’d been following and hadn’t noticed the dim yellow light coming from one of the tunnels. Rael and I followed it, and finally breathed fresh air again as we emerged onto an isolated valley, looking down on a snow-covered hollow between the peaks.

***

Looking down from a great height puts a new perspective on things. It’s easy to miss the details, but they’re what’s important. I’ve traveled across the Griffin Commonwealth and seen so many things. Waterfalls that split and rejoin on their way to the ground, and mountains where a single tree clings defiantly to the peak; as well as radio relay stations for communicating with the zebra empire, and factories whose single purpose is to produce perfect ball bearings. I’ve met griffins who have looked at the Commonwealth and embraced the former while shunning the latter. They wish to live a simple life, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think they miss the point. They wish to turn back time to when not only were there no megaspells, but no war between the ponies and zebras, no influence from outside nations in the Commonwealth. But that world no longer exists, and trying to live in it will no longer work. There has to be a new way to live in this post-megaspell world we inhabit. I have ideas, of course, about what it means to do so (I’ve even written them down so I won’t forget, and shared them with others who seem to agree), but just that by itself can’t truly answer all the questions griffins will have. And if there’s anything else I’ve learned during my travels, it’s that everything in the Commonwealth has a price of some sort. We can’t ignore any part of this land, the good or the bad, and need to make use of what was left behind as best we can. All the things I’ve seen eventually converge on one point; there lies the means to save or destroy the Commonwealth. I could see everything I wish come to pass, but who’s to say I am the one to reshape this post-megaspell world? All I can think of is how to live in it.

***

From our vantage point where the tunnel exited the mountains, it wasn’t difficult to pick out the four locations Rok had called out. A frozen waterfall in the distance formed an elongated “O” where it split and rejoined. In a different spot, a snow-covered tree could be seen jutting defiantly up from a mountain peak. To the east, collapsed radio towers marked where a station had once stood for broadcasting messages to the Zebra Empire. An abandoned and decaying factory squatted at the bottom of the valley, and I’d wager that if we explored it, we’d find it had been devoted to making ball bearings. Once we’d located all these things, it was a simple matter of finding the common point between them and taking off for it.

I’d had to leave my hopper behind at the other end of the tunnels, so it was on hoof that I traveled down the mountains and then back up on the way to what I hoped would be the end of our journey. After this passage, Rok had resumed his narrative, writing about the establishment of Dawn, so I didn’t expect there to be any more clues to follow, at least not from the griffin prophet. It was a nondescript section of mountain that we had been pointed to, with no signs to draw any attention. Rael and I scoured the area, looking for how we were to access the treasure, and I came upon an unnaturally straight fissure that ran down a short cliff face, a door left slightly ajar, perhaps by Rok and his friends when they’d come this way.

Over the years, snow and detritus had blown in through the gap, leaving a gravelly, icy surface as we entered what was clearly not a natural cavern. Though the walls, floor, and ceiling were of stone, everything was squared off unnaturally. Lights similar to those we’d seen in the tunnels through the mountains led the way deeper in. After a short walk, we came upon a somewhat familiar sight. A recreation of von Plume’s manor’s hall filled the space. As I walked through, I bumped into a rocking chair and heard a click as it moved, followed by a slight dimming of the lights before they returned to normal.

Catching on (I hoped) to what we were supposed to do here, I approached the obelisk jutting up from the floor and touched the peak with my hoof, pushing it down and causing a click. The lights remained unchanged, and I took that as a good sign as I trotted over to a mantlepiece with three griffin statues and a painting of a rising sun. The griffins also clicked as I depressed them and I made my way across the hall to shelf with a spyglass that I depressed as well. Then it was over to a minotaur statue where a coin winked from its mouth, around the screen it was propped up against and a tug on a string of lights. A large vault door dominated the wall, but I ignored it as I traveled to each of the four corners and (with Rael’s help for the high ones) pressed the representations of a waterfall, tree, radio station, and factory.

With the last click, a much louder series of them emanated from the vault door and it slowly swung open. As I peered around the door, I saw only a stone wall, until the crystals around the inside of the circular opening began to glow and a portal filled the space, looking out on inky blackness. Lights flickered on haphazardly, revealing a hoard that would make a dragon drool in envy. Stacks of gold bars stretched out as far as the eye could see, accompanied by plastic barrels, many sealed, but others overflowing with diamonds and other precious gemstones. Just within the vault was a stone lectern that held a poker chip that looked to be made of platinum, but had a mechanical weight to it marked as a “Certificate of Inheritance” with a map of Pleasure Coast embossed on one side. One of the stacks of gold bars near the door had an obvious gap in it, marking where Rok and his friends had taken their portion of the treasure, but it was an insignificant amount compared to the full scope of the vault.

It was a fairy tale that had been repeated by griffins for centuries, but we’d done what had (to our knowledge) only been done once before. We’d found von Plume’s treasure. Now we just needed to figure out how to get it to Shearpoint to secure Gideon’s support.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: For What Shall it Profit a Mare… – Use von Plume’s treasure to help save Pleasure Coast from the Steel Rangers.
Alteration Magic +3 (43)
Athletics +3 (49)
Barter +1 (125)
Electronics +1 (61)
Lockpick +4 (118)
Manipulation Magic +2 (51)
Pilot +15 (75)
Repair +1 (125)
Sneak +2 (118)
Speech +4 (128)
Survival +5 (112)